Go big or go home... maybe not

I recently received a long email from Leonie Dawson explaining why she was clawing back her business.

Since 2009, this creative Australian entrepreneur has built a successful global business but instead of owning her business, she’s found that it owned her.  

She’d grown the business organically with one strategy/product/project leading to another and it all worked.     

But not for her.

Leonie talks about being totally taken over by OPO (other people’s opinions), which led her down a path of exhaustion, burn out and frustration as she was no longer doing what she loved.

I applaud her for having the courage to step back and reflect on what she wants out of life.  Not only that, she’s shared what she is going to do and why she is taking such drastic steps to refocus, to simplify her business and get back to her original mission.

So often we can find ourselves on a path we never planned to take. I remember in the One Red Lipstick project interviewing a successful young entrepreneur who when faced with a large, business-changing contract, chose to turn it down. 

It wasn’t the right time for her or her young family and as she reflected on her skill set, she was an entrepreneur, not a manager.  She didn’t want to be managing a large team which she would have needed if she’d moved forward.  Instead of a creative enterprise, she would have built herself an empire and that was not what she wanted.

Yet in North American culture, the mantra is “go big or go home.”  But maybe not.

In his book Small Giants, Bo Burlingham, shares stories of successful business owners, who have chosen to be great instead of big.   He interviewed business owners who had rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals.  Goals like being great at what they do, creating a great place to work, and making great contributions to their communities.

Burlingham calls this route “the road less travelled” and it could be that those on that road, catch more of the scenery and are less exhausted when they reach their destination.

As you enter 2017, I encourage you to look closely at your goals.  Bigger isn’t necessarily better.  Take into consideration why you started your business in the first place.  Revisit your mission.  Give yourself permission to tailor your business to suit your lifestyle and your family, and ignore the pressures around you to make more, do more.

Remember this is YOUR business.  Own it. 

Raising sons to care

Imagine, says Anne Marie Slaughter, a race – one person has a knapsack on her back, full of weights, and the other has nothing.   Who wins?  The man, of course. 

That’s because women still have the bulk of “care” duties associated with running a home as well as holding down a career.  

It’s not the man who receive calls in the middle of important meetings that a play date has fallen through.

None of that will change until we, as a society, she went on to add, start to place value on caring and that the role doesn’t automatically fall on the women’s shoulders.

Anne Marie, author of Unfinished Business, was speaking at the Art of Leadership for Women this week in Toronto.

Her father was a lawyer, her mother an artist who also stayed home to raise her family.     However, if her mother ever said she was a homemaker, then she was dismissed as a nobody.  Being an artist on the other hand gave her some clout, regardless of whether she actually sold any paintings.

When her own sons were teenagers, Anne Marie decided to take a two-year leave from her position with the Secretary of State Office.  People really were puzzled by this decision – deciding she was either not that ambitious, or not that good at her job and had been asked to leave.  She was systematically dismissed because she was taking on the homemaking role.  

Little did they know, she jokes, that she refused to cook, sew or iron.  In fact for most of her illustrious career, her husband was the lead parent, making sure her sons got to school, activities and so on.  She was the main breadwinner and the one travelling.

Part of the problem she feels is that while times have changed, we still tend to expect boys grow up and become the breadwinners, and the girls to become wives and mothers, with a career on the side.

While we encourage our daughters to go for it and that they can be anything they want, we also need to start educating our sons that they in fact could become the “lead parent” and need to ask themselves if they are prepared to move and adapt with their partner’s career.

What women want today is it all - the power …. and the shoes. She challenged the women in the audience to visit a local bookstore and check out the Parenting and Leadership sections . The topics, she observed are very similar.  It therefore makes sense that the skills we develop as mothers, can easily be transferred to the workplace. 

Women have the management skills, but we need to develop the confidence that we have what it takes.  Let’s face it, she pointed out as mothers we are used to the unpredictable, we’ve learned to go with the flow.  Likewise in the corporate world, uncertainly is the one sure thing, so we are already equipped to handle fluctuating situations.

She then joked that this  however was not a good reason to have children, but more that parenting was a training ground for managers.

She was an entertaining, thought-provoking speaker who was able to articulate the challenges facing women today and offered a completely different approach to changing the way we think about and value the caring role.

Are you OK?

that was my subject line in my email to my friend.

Thing is, how often do we check in with one another, let alone with ourselves?  We’re all so busy going here and there; attending that event, dashing off to another, that we can forget to ask or not notice that a friend seems a bit distracted or down.   We’re on auto-pilot.

But somehow the stress and sense of overwhelm can seep through to our everyday lives, and we can find ourselves on a fast track to being burned out.  Been there, done that, still have the T shirt.  In fact, truth be, I likely should be wearing it right now.  It’s been a hectic fall.

Part of it I think is we take on too much, and then when we realize that we have, we don’t want to let anyone down, so we honour our commitments.  However, there can be an expensive price tag to be paid if we continue despite the warning signs.  Or perhaps we have some difficult decisions and choices to make, as we take our lives in a different direction.  Contrary to the media, I don’t think we can have it all.

I know when I am over-stretched.  I get a tad tetchy, a little impatient and start to take stuff too personally.  

With the holiday season fast approaching, the pressure is on.  Not only do we have to get our usual stuff done, but we have to fit in all the gift buying, wrapping and delivering.  I don’t know who does what in your household, but the buck stops here.  I do the “Santa” bit in our family.

I can just hear you… she needs to chill.  I know but my point is that don’t think I am alone.  In fact, I know I am not.   As women we tend to take it all on and there comes a breaking point, when enough is enough, or we get sick.

So check in with your friends.  Check in with yourself.   How are you doing?  What can you do to slow down?  Is there something you can delegate, forget and leave out this year?  Does everything have to be perfect or can you let some things drop?

Perhaps your business has evolved and become something beyond what you thought.  Is this what you want, and if it isn’t, how can you change it so it fits with where you are at right now?

At the end of the day, it is all about choices.  And often we have more choices than we think.  We don’t have to feel boxed in.  We can choose to opt out rather than opt in.  

So for December, I am taking my chill pill.  I am slowing down the pace and maybe then I will enjoy it all more.  What about you?  Are you OK?

Our tipping points

Do you remember Malcolm Gladwell’s bookThe Tipping Point, in which he observes that in business there is often a certain point when everything changes and suddenly you have a success on your hands?

I am beginning to think there’s a tipping point in our lives too, but with a different outcome.  One minute we’re fine, juggling all that we have to do and then bang, one extra task/event/problem comes our way, and suddenly we are not doing so well; we’re not coping.

For women it is often the family responsibilities – such as a sick child or parent; a move or a cancelled babysitter, that throws everything off kilter.

It’s when life happens that there is a domino effect and where once you were “just about” managing, that one event, trips you up.  Whichever way you slice it, there are only 24 hours in a day, and there is only so much we can do in that time.

This week I attended a lecture at Rotman School of Business, about dealing with Overwhelm and the Motherload.  The audience was packed with young women who were juggling career and parenthood.

As the panel shared their war stories, of bought muffins for school vs. baking them from scratch, going to the wrong place to pick up a child or having to dash from work to deliver a child to a ballet class because the sitter cancelled, it struck me that not much has changed since I was the young mother with two children, trying to juggle it all.

Except in some ways it has, in that women get fewer breaks for themselves because with technology they can reached 24/7 and the working hours do seem longer.   Dads are perhaps a bit more involved, but that isn’t a given, and children seem to be over-programmed, creating even more stress as someone has to get them to the classes, etc.. As for the traditional family dinner where you sit and eat together, it seems like something from the past. 

Personally I think we need to cut ourselves some slack and let go this need to do everything perfectly.  It isn’t feasible and we end up doing ourselves in trying to achieve perfection. 

This fall seems to have been extremely busy, with little time to pause and I don’t think I am alone in this feeling of overwhelm, of having too much to do, and too little time in which to do it. 

So something has to give, and before I reach my tipping point, and much as I hate to, I have started to say “no” to requests to meet, participate or volunteer – because if I don’t take charge of my time, no one else will.

Forget Year of the Horse. It is Year of Me

 

Why is it as women that we are prone to putting our own needs last?  Is it our childhood upbringing or just part of our DNA as women.

With the start of a new year, I’ve been asking women what they want for themselves this year.  Given I work mainly with small business owners, I expected to hear about growth plans or how they were going to delegate more, or do business differently. 

But no, the overwhelming response has been the wish to transfer the focus from others to themselves.  Forget Year of the Horse, this, according to the women, is the Year of Me.  Tired of juggling all the tasks on their lists, trying to please everyone; they have decided to please themselves.

And good for them.  However, old habits are hard to break and our families and staff are used to us being “on call.”  It may therefore have to be a gradual process, rather than switching overnight to being “all about you.”   What you don’t want is to go too far the other way and become self-absorbed.  That doesn’t work either and will create friction   at work or at home and more likely than not, sabotage your plans for fun.

As one woman suggested, make a list of all that irritates you, tasks you would like to delegate to someone else, or eliminate all together. Just because it has always been done, and by you, doesn’t mean it always will be.  Letting go of perfection and the need to have it done your way, will free up your time and energy. 

Part of the trick, I think, is to schedule time -  for yourself – start with just a few hours a week to do something just for you like getting your hair cut, meeting friends for coffee or dinner; or pursuing that hobby that you loved but have neglected.  Don’t have any hobbies?  Reflect back to what you enjoyed doing as a child.

For me it is always sitting with a good book where I can escape and forget about where I am and what I have to do.  I love mysteries and I think in another life, I’d make a good detective.  So what works for you?

One of the challenges is getting over your guilt.  We are so programmed to be doing stuff for everyone else, that sitting down, with our feet up reading a book seems decadent and wrong.  But as someone who is a beginner at this, trust me you can get over it, and feel so refreshed as a result. 

Just like the hamster on the treadmill, going round and round.  Break the cycle.  Stop, open the door and get out. Even if you won’t do it for yourself, think of your children.  You are a role model of how it works, or not. Show your daughters that it’s OK to take time for yourself.  Let your sons know that they can’t expect their partners to always be on call and need to respect their need for space, for time alone.

You work hard and are entitled to a break. So cut yourself some slack, step out and make a date with yourself.  You’ll find you are in good company.