074: The Emotional Journey of Growing Your Business

Angela is joining me today to jam about the emotional journey that happens as you’re growing and scaling your business. There are a lot of ups and downs, but a lot of times we’re not talking about the leaders or founders’ journey of grief, excitement, freedom, and fear that happens as they start letting go of more and more pieces of the business and start working on the business rather than in the business. This came up because a team mate was letting us know she was talking to a friend who is a small business owner that’s going through it. So, we thought it’s a great topic to talk about. Ready? Let’s do this!

 

Key Takeaways:

[1:07] The framework for today’s discussion is based on Michael Gerber’s distinction between working on the business vs. working in the business.

[3:54] The Small Business Lifecycle and the first stage of business growth.

[4:51] The second stage of growing your team and delegation.

[6:03] The last and hardest stage of business growth, which occurs in mature businesses.

[9:23] How do you let go of something you’re so good at doing in your own business? Slowly!

[17:25] What do you do with your newly gained creative energy?

[22:01] The tense balance that is created when you’re at the last stage of letting go of responsibilities.

[26:46] There are different things you can do with that excess creative energy.

[30:20] The challenges with slowing down and letting the rest of your team take care of things!

[34:39] An opportune time to take a step back as a founder or CEO and get really clear about the vision for your business.

[38:04] The two types of fear that come up for people in getting to that level of finally letting go.

[40:02] Growing your business involves an emotional and spiritual journey that can be embraced.

 

Mentioned in This Episode:

The E-Myth, book by Michael Gerber

The Small Business Lifecycle, book by Charlie Gilkey

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