Why are You Turning up to a Job?

Many SME owners act like they are turning up to a job. They arrive at the same time, clock in, and undertake the tasks as if an imaginary boss is overseeing them drudgingly move through the day until it is time to knock off. If this were a normal job that you would apply for and be employed in, it would not be a very attractive one. It normally consists of extremely long hours, is often poorly paid and holds the ultimate responsibility for everything that goes wrong throughout the day. Having personally run and operated multiple businesses in this way before waking up and making the changes that gave me a Business by Design, I get it. You act this way in the day to day because it is what you know, it is safe, and it provides security and consistency of outcome. Even if that outcome is not that great, like a Big Mac from Mcdonald's, at least you know what you get.

The problem is, this behaviour just doesn’t make any sense! If you wanted to work like this, then go get a job! But you want to be your own boss, you say. Paradoxically, for far too many business owners, being your own boss, which is meant to give you more freedom, has exactly the opposite outcome. You end up with less freedom, less money and less quality time. Spending your day to day doing a range of technical tasks in the business that not only do you not enjoy but, over time, you will likely come to resent them.

What if there was a different way?

There is, and it lies in the accountability space. A space where you accept everything you are responsible for in your life.

To break through the entrepreneurial ceiling, you must take full accountability and ownership. What do I need to start doing, stop doing and keep doing to get a different result? It is only through owning your circumstances that you can decide to shift, change, and grow. It is only in truly owning our situations that we can get a different outcome and move from reactive in the day to day to proactive, where we influence our destiny and ultimately create a business by design.

This is where leadership by design lives. It is the deliberate actions of designing the future you want for yourself, your people and your business that you are accountable for—a place where every failure and mistake are seen as opportunities to lean in and learn.

This is a brave frontier. A place where we will be very uncomfortable; often. A place where we must risk what we know for what could be. It is not a place most of us like to go, but the good news is, it’s a muscle that can be built. Every step towards the unknown and every decision you take, which you are truly accountable for, is a step closer to getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Another foothold, another handhold, up the rock face taking you further from chaos and one step closer to a life by design, a business by design and a scalable business.

Are you turning up to a job or creating a business by design?