The other day I meet with an entrepreneur who went through one of our programs back in 2016. Back then one of his main dilemma’s was how to balance his time between the two companies he founded, both starting to become successful at the time. I remember giving him the advise to “focus”, which finally this year he and his co-founder did when they sold their shares for one of the companies. Coincidence or not, but not long thereafter they were able to secure venture capital funding for their other company to expand their market.

The funny thing is, this entrepreneur returned the favor during our brief encounter in advising me to start focusing too. And whereas as a teacher I know I should, as an entrepreneur this is clearly easier said than done… it really bugged me throughout the weekend how come that when it specifically comes to the advise to “focus”, there seems to be an almost unsurmountable big gap between knowing and doing.

The knowing part is easy: only when you are fully dependent on making one thing work, you put all your energy and creativity to make it happen! You find solutions & ideas in depths you didn’t know you had, simply because you never would have had the need to search for them otherwise. Then there are the competing priorities: if you are working on several different companies, you will never get to level 2 or 3 as there will always be another priority 1 for another company to solve first.

Now the doing…

When it comes to focus, there is a clear conflict between the heart (not wanting to give up) and the mind (knowing you should)… I think Tesh said it best when he mentioned that they were only ready to let go, when they got compensation for all the effort they had put in. I guess I had to use visualistion to bridge that gap for myself…

SPARK OF THE DAY

The more companies or projects you work on, the more foundations you have to build and the longer you stay on the surface. Real growth amplifies the more you’re able to put in your creativity, time, energy and other resources. 

Time to prioritize my own focus, and maybe this helps you too to do the same…