I recently sat down with an entrepreneur who is nine months into building his business. He described the trials and tribulations of figuring out his business structure, landing his first few clients, and collecting invoices.
I don’t denigrate those challenges. Starting a business is hard! But having built four successful businesses over the last fifteen years, I’m very familiar with those early stages of building a business.
In 2021, I grew Zander Media to more than 10 full-time employees. We were booming! And during that growth, I went through an era of learning and challenge unlike anything I’d experienced before. We sold and delivered larger projects, I hired and fired more people, and I nearly burnt out.
Then, the economy changed and we had to downsize.
I went through a learning portal – a very intense trial of learning and growth. And then I backtracked – I stepped backwards and found myself at a smaller, more predictable stage of the business than I’d been at before.
I haven’t crossed a new portal of learning at Zander Media since 2022, and probably won’t until the business surpasses our previous metrics – in people, project scope, or sales.
Because that’s how learning works.
Every time we step through a portal we learn something new about ourselves. We become a new person. And we can’t step back.
Until next week,
Robin