Going It Alone -- Day 19/365

Real People.  Real Business.  Real Life.

If you're going to accomplish something truly great with your business, do you really think you are going to do it alone?

Or do you think it's going to be a situation where you can actually take all the credit?  Legitimately?

Your answers to those questions, my friend, should be no.  But entrepreneurs have a really bad habit of trying to do things essentially by themselves.  Or, if they do have a team around them, they still try to position themselves so that the "real results" were created by themselves -- not the team.

Here are the top 3 reasons why I see entrepreneurs trying to hold all the reigns and try to go-it-alone:

• Greed: They want all the money, or as much of it as possible, for themselves.  They get stuck restraining their enterprise because they don't bring others in and give them a real piece of the action.
• Pride:  They want to be responsible for the big wins and want all the glory.
• Fear:  They think they are the only ones on the planet who really can "do it," and so they never hand enough control over to others so they can put points on the board ---- OR ---- they hand over control, and then sabotage the other person's effort (usually subconsciously).

Very few small business owners I encounter are totally free from these vices.  And usually they are guilty -- on one level or another -- of holding their business back for the above (or related) reasons.

TAKEAWAY:  You're a different breed if you're in business for yourself.  "Normal" people go get a job!  Realize that you have a tendency to over-control the world around you, and that as a result -- you're probably significantly constraining the performance of your business in at least one area.

ACTION STEP:  Spend some time in self-reflection.  Figure out where greed might be guiding your decisions.  Uncover the areas where pride is causing you to over-control.  Dig up the fears that keep you from harnessing the strengths others might bring to the table.  Just becoming conscious of these short-comings will help you let go a little and behave a little more productively, growth-wise.

To Your Enduring Success,

Growing you, growing your business, engineering your BREAKTHROUGH.