I love to work. I really do. I find my work compelling, and I’m constantly drawn to it. There are always so many fascinating people I want to work with, so many interesting things I want to follow up on, so much reading I want to do, so many things I want to write about. So many products and programs I want to create. So much stuff that, and this is crazy, I find myself annoyed that I need to sleep — if I didn’t, I could get so much more done! I just want to think and read and write and create all the time. Nuts, huh?

I was on the phone last week (during “Ten Minutes with Marcia”) with a woman who had a very interesting question for me, and I could really relate. She, too, found she didn’t have enough time, and she wondered if I had some advice for her on how to find balance.

Having just had a baby, she had a bit more juggling to do than I have, though. Her business was also very multifaceted, her schedule very tight, and her question was this:

“When I have so little time and so much to do, how can I find balance?”

I asked her to explain her business to me, and to tell me more about her schedule. Then I asked her if she had determined her most important objective for her business.

What is your most important objective?

Often we think we need to do it all, when our clients would be quite satisfied with only our best. So — why not offer only our best, especially during the times when we’re feeling stressed and looking for balance? And just let everything else fall by the wayside?

The way this works with your most important business objective, is to determine what that objective is, for now — because it may change from time to time. Sometimes, your most important objective may be to delight your current clients. Sometimes it might be to gain absolute clarity about your true value and what makes you different. And sometimes it might be to bring money in the door as soon as possible.

Concentrate on the one part of your business that will most affect your business objective

As my caller and I talked about the different facets of her business, it became clear just how thin she was stretched. It also became clear her most important business objective, for now, was to bring in money, and one particular aspect of her business clearly and easily brought in more money than the others. Because of this, because of the new baby, and because of the frustration she’s feeling right now, I asked her if she might consider letting some of the other parts of her business go for the time being, and concentrate on the one service that would accomplish her most important objective — and that she concentrate on doing it at her very best.

She could still continue to focus on her business, and on giving great service to her clients, during her dedicated business hours, but her energies would all be directed to one specific service — the one that brought in the most income — which would avoid splitting her attention. She’d have less of a feeling of spinning her wheels and be able to be more productive during the time she can devote to business — which also means she’ll be more relaxed and present when she’s with her new baby. Her quality of satisfaction in both areas should increase — and she should feel more balanced.

We only had ten minutes together, so I can’t tell you for sure that this produced a major shift for the new mom. She did say it was helpful, she sounded better able to see her way through, and I could tell the idea resonated with her. But I want to tell you, I feel relieved, more focused, and more balanced, just thinking about it that way, myself!

You can choose to find balance

Balance doesn’t necessarily mean finding ways to do it all. Sometimes it means finding the most important things, doing those, and not beating yourself up over the things you’re choosing not to do.

I love this quote from Dr. Seuss:

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.”

It’s really up to you.

This post is dedicated to Melanie. It was inspired by a post on her Solo Mompreneur blog. Actually, it’s basically my comment to her post about perfectionism. Because I, too, used to be a perfectionist.

And this is a true story.

Notice I say I used to be a perfectionist — I’m not anymore. But I was. I mean, like, my name was on the door, right? I had to do everything. And then I got really busy and grew really fast and I had to hire people. So what did I do then? After they went home at night, I stayed and redid all the work on their desks.

Yes, I did.

They’d come in in the morning to notes all over their work — could you imagine? But I didn’t think they could do it as well as I could.

Then we kept getting busier still and finally things started slipping thru the cracks and I started missing things. I couldn’t redo everything — and some stuff got out to clients before I could redo it. And guess what? The clients loved it! I couldn’t believe that my clients loved stuff that *I* didn’t do!

It stopped me dead in my tracks. Suddenly I could let other people help and the clients liked it just as much as when I did it — sometimes better. I started making more money because more of us could work on things. I didn’t have to put in as many hours or stress out half as much. It started feeling really good!

And that’s how I stopped being a perfectionist.

It’s so cool to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs have boundless energy, the need to create, the capacity to work for long hours without sleep, and the ability to make things out of nothing. These qualities can all be powerful drivers of success, but this enthusiasm can also keep you from moving forward and cause you to strangle your business — you can only do so much yourself before you hit the wall. Recognizing when you need help, and being able to let go and empower others to help you, can really be liberating.

Check yourself against the following symptoms to find out if you’re a victim of the Entrepreneurial Curse:

Symptoms of the Entrepreneurial Curse

1. You’re always jotting down notes about your great ideas but you can’t ever get to them.
2. You find yourself saying, “I can do it better myself.”
3. You find yourself saying, “It will take me longer to tell someone else how to do it than it will for me to do it myself — so I’ll just do it myself.”
4. You find yourself saying, “No one can do it without my help anyway, so I might as well do it myself.”
5. You find yourself saying, “Nothing gets done right around here unless I do it.”
6. You find yourself saying, “My clients expect me to be doing all of the work — they won’t accept a phone call from an assistant. So I might as well do it myself.”

I guarantee you that none of those statements above are true — you just think they are (it’s okay, we all do at one time or another. )

It’s a blessing to be an entrepreneur. But it can turn into a real drag if your business is at a standstill because you’re holding on too tight. Think about using that boundless energy and need to create more expansively by getting out of the busy-ness of your business and using your genius more effectively.

Now that you know you’ve got “the Curse,” you’ve got no excuse. Ha.

In May, I did a Laser Coaching session with Heiner Schäfer of Eyendorf, Germany. It was just a 15-minute Skype conversation about his business (although I think we went over by 5 or so minutes), but it stands out for me because Heiner was so focused. He really knew what he wanted to ask me about, and that meant I could really be focused on giving him solid answers. It’s a great example of how much can be covered in these types of free calls, even though they’re so short.

I met Heiner on Facebook. He came across one of my videos, the one where I ask if you’re the bottleneck in your own business, and said he saw himself in it. He said he and his business partner/wife, Ute, felt stuck. So he sent me an email and we did the free session.

It was a really cool conversation. Heiner’s the kind of guy who lets you know then and there if an idea hits him right, and that helped me keep zeroing in closer so I could help him out. I love conversations like that – there’s a rhythm, a kind of dance, a back and forth – and thoughtful clients can really make a good coach or consultant even better. We did questions, answers, clues, information, clarification, fine tuning, aha’s, and even some destuckification, to quote Havi Brooks, based on the feedback Heiner gave me when I followed up with him a few weeks ago. (Except it’s not the exact same as Havi’s destuckification. I do not have a duck.)

The following is what Heiner told me was the result of our session, in his words.

“I first saw your video on Facebook, practically telling me that I’m the bottleneck in my business, and I found myself in that video. I know this bit of business, because early on I worked with someone who was the bottleneck, and I couldn’t get started with the jobs I should have done because he was holding things back, and now this is probably my position. Practically this is showing itself with quite a few unfinished projects that could bring in money if I ever finished them, – I’m working on a book, for example, and on a few videos — but instead I’m doing busy work for clients that’s not bringing in much money, if at all, and it keeps me from doing the really important jobs.

“You told me to outsource work if I could, and first I thought about employing someone but that’s not possible right now, so you told me to look for someone to do part of my work but not all of it. We talked about contracts, who would buy the software and those type of things. That was the first solution, the next step is to get it going.

“I hardly ever charge my clients for these little changes, they want the changes done free of charge and as long as I do it myself, they expect me to do it for free, but the moment I tell them I’ve got someone to do it, because I can’t do it myself today, the choice they have is, to pay and get it done, or not to get it done.

“So having someone work for me may actually bring me into the position of making more money than I used to and that was quite a surprise.

“There’s another surprise — If I don’t finish my book and my other important projects within the next year, it might even mean that my business will no longer be profitable. Today my clients are not willing to pay as much as they once were for corporate design and websites. So not doing new things and not finishing these projects might even cost the whole business.

“Actually, producing our new video was one of the consequences of the conversation I had with you. I knew we would have to solve some software problems before we could begin outsourcing, so my part would be to get my own business better organized and communicate my message better than I used to do, and if I send out clearly what can I offer, people might react more like I want them to react. And actually this is about to happen, we’ve talked to quite a few people who have seen the new video and they understand better what we can do, and some people want videos now — they say ‘I want the same thing, I want this video for me.’

“I had planned to do this video for quite some time, some of the footage is more than a year old, but I never got a grip on it. But after our coaching session, I said, well this is the next thing I have to do now.”

Can you just see Heiner’s bottleneck starting to loosen up? Gives me goose bumps. I love this stuff!

Check out Heiner and Ute’s work (including their video) at their Design On Location site. But first register for your no-cost Laser Coaching session. . .  unless you’re getting to kinda like your own bottleneck and the way it keeps your business from growing.

It’s pretty easy to strangle your business, and I’ll bet you do it automatically – in fact, it’s probably hard for you to not do it.

My old accountant used to tell me, and he’d illustrate it with a yucky twisting of his fists, “Don’t strangle the goose that lays the golden egg.” All I could think about was that invisible goose choking to death on his desk, and I wasn’t paying any attention to what he meant.

I’m not even sure how he really meant it, because all he ever wanted to talk about was accounting and I always zoned out during those conversations, but the goose did become a metaphor for me. It took me outside of my business and I started to think of it as something separate from me, instead of part of me.

I could look at the goose (a pretty, live one, not the dead one) and say, “That’s my business, and I want to keep it healthy.” I could stand back and look at it, and say, “Gol–ly, look at that! I made something.” I started to think of it as a living, breathing thing, with its own needs, something that needed to be cared for, and also as something that I could screw up if I wasn’t careful. But the point is, it wasn’t me.

And I came pretty close to strangling that living thing. Here’s how:

1. Doing everything my way
I almost strangled my business by insisting that everything be done my way. I’m sure you know what I mean, right? It was my business, so things should be done the way I thought they should. That’s what made it work. That’s why people hired me. I drove myself crazy doing everything, and then re-doing everything my staff did, too. You’d have hated working for me then – I’d stay late so I could go around to everyone’s drawing tables and redo their work. It drove me nuts if any of the work that left our shop didn’t look like I did it – I thought I was letting my clients down if it didn’t have my stamp on it.

2. Not seeking advice
I almost strangled my business by insisting on going it alone. This was really crazy. But I was young and didn’t know that it was okay to not know everything – I absolutely thought I had to know everything, or put up a good front that I did. I would not admit that I might need help learning how to run a business, even when I was completely lost. I pretended for a long time, then worried that people would see through me. Now don’t you pretend that this isn’t you, too – for some reason, we all see world-class performers like Tiger Woods, Yo-Yo Ma, and President Obama with their coaches, teachers, and advisors, but we lowly entrepreneurs pigheadedly think we should go it alone, and we make tons of mistakes. It’s insanity.

3. Not surrounding myself with peers
I almost strangled my business by isolating myself, and it, from people who knew what I was going through. I networked with clients and prospects and got out there and glad-handed, but I didn’t say a peep to anyone who actually had a business like mine – heck, they were the competition. Or they might find out I didn’t know what I was doing. So I didn’t have a support system for a long time, no one to really talk to about what it’s like or to ask how they handled something, or even to find out I wasn’t alone.

So all that’s in the past for me. I can look at my goose now and say that I was lucky enough to wise up, figure a few things out about her, loosen my grip, and help her to breathe.

So take a look at your goose now, before she ends up choking on some accountant’s desk. Let’s do a Laser Coaching Session, okay?

So, you’ve worked hard to get a good reputation for your business, and your clients love you. They really respect your work and your advice, they bring all their projects to you, and they refer you to others. Fantastic! There’s just one teeny little problem: there’s only so much of you to go around.

Even though you’ve got that great assistant/director/presenter you hired and personally trained so you could take on more work, she doesn’t do things exactly the way you do, and your clients only want to work with you. Flattering? Yes. One way to keep tight control of your company’s products and services? Uh-huh. The best way to burn yourself out so that you’ll wonder why you ever started the dang business? Absolutely. The perfect way to put a strangle hold on your business so it has a snowball’s chance in hell of growing? You betcha.

3 Ways You’re Going to Have to Change to Break the Cycle

Hang on! This is the scary part for most of the entrepreneurs I work with. But change can be a good thing, especially if it gets work off of your desk, helps your business grow, and brings in more money.

1.) You’re going to have to let go of some of the control Do this now: Stand up. Step back away from your desk. Take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and relax.

Imagine that someone else is handling that urgent, messy problem. Picture someone else making your pickiest client happy. See others on your team working after hours planning the presentation, chasing down the details, assuring the quality your company has become known for. Now imagine yourself standing on the sidelines cheering them on — doesn’t it feel great? — right before you slip away for a week or two at your beach house.

If you keep your eye on the prize (the beach house), working yourself to a frazzle because your clients only want to work with you doesn’t make much sense, does it? You can do this! It just takes a little practice, a little know-how, and the right team.

2.) You’re going to have to accept that your way is not the only way So what if she doesn’t do it exactly like you? Do you really think you’re the only one who can do it? Or do you think your way is the only way your clients will like, because it’s the only way you like?

I thought that too, and I used to redo and redirect everything my team did until one day we were just too busy, and some work went out that I didn’t like — I just didn’t have enough time to fix it. Guess what? The client loved it! I was amazed, so I started letting more work go out that wasn’t exactly like I would have done it.

Now, don’t misunderstand — this wasn’t substandard work. It was good, high quality work, it just didn’t do it for me. And I came to realize that because there are different kinds of people in the world, not everyone likes things done my way. Imagine that!

An amazing thing happened when the work that came out of our shop didn’t all look like mine: we became known for excellent work that solved problems, instead of excellent work that looked like Marcia did it. We became more diverse, which meant we could serve a more diverse group of clients. I still reviewed everything for quality, basic consistencies, and to make sure it solved the clients’ problems, and our philosophies and strategies were similar throughout. And our business grew — even faster.

3. You’re going to have to start promoting your team When you talk about your business, do you use the *I* word or the *We* word? Do you tell your clients about the capabilities of the experts you have on your team? Do you market and promote your team members as valuable resources your clients have access to? You should, if you want others to value their contributions and want to work with them.

No one likes a “bait-and-switch.” If you promote your company as you, then try to get your client to work with a different member of your team, they’re no doubt going to feel sold to. But if you introduce your client to your talented team, of which you are a part, letting him know that he’ll have the opportunity to work with a mix of your combined expertise, he’ll look forward the experience. The first time you do this your ego will undoubtedly take a hit, but the extra time you gain on the golf course should make up for it.

If you want your business to grow, if you really want to wean your clients from insisting on working only with you, you’re going to have to let go of some of the control. There are strategies to do this. You’re going to have to accept that your way is not the only way. There are correct ways to do this without freaking out, as well. And you’re going to have to start promoting your team, while still remaining the leader. Try loosening your grip with the above strategies and watch your business, and your team, soar to new heights.