As a microbusiness entrepreneur, what is your single greatest challenge to better results?
If I answered this question 2 years ago, I’d talk about business strategy and brand expansion/establishment and execution on goals… the typical items that I used to prioritize as the most important in my life.
Today, my single greatest challenge to better results is redefining “results” to align with the way I want to live my life, and a big part of that is being a new parent. The kinds of questions I address now are along the lines of “what do I need to do to ensure the quality of time and life I want to give to the most important people in my life?”
Gross revenue used to be important. Now revenue per hour worked is my benchmark. The kind of results I aim to achieve are the ones that keep me feeling (and physically alive) and at the same time, supportive of personal relationships.
We’ve been hearing so much about the “triple bottomline” and companies becoming more “green”. Taking care of the Earth as part of taking care of our future is important, no doubt. What about taking care of the very social structures and cultural fabric of our civilization? No one’s talking about that intangible “humanity” bottom line – the one that affects each and every one of us – the one that shapes how we see ourselves and our roles in the world and our responsibility to each other.
I don’t, for one minute, think that this focus on family is all touchy-feely… there is a very dramatic financial bottom-line that has yet to be measured satisfactorily. There are many overworked suicidal physicians with broken marriages working in healthcare today. How long can these healers heal when their relationships are diseased? Or business chiefs who trade dollars for the time they did not spend with their children. How long can these chiefs remain professionally effective when their personal lives grow toxic?
The way I see it, by choosing to align my “business leadership” with my relationship-centered core values, I am forced to innovate. I will keep looking for ways to make work “work” for my family, not against – and hold myself accountable to make this happen.
Image credit: Rays behind cloud by Asif Akbar
