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Note: Folks ask me all the time about how I grew 2 international training and coaching firms while living in some pretty cool beach towns. Hollywood/Florida for 20 years. Now Setubal/Portugal.
This is the first of 6 articles about what I have learned from growing these businesses while staying committed to my beach-bum-self and a beach-based lifestyle.
It was a great business set-up.
I owned an international training and coaching firm that helped CEOs and C-Suite leaders around the world to amplify their personal impact
In many ways, I had launched this business kicking and screaming. I did not think of myself as an entrepreneur – never mind serial entrepreneur. In 2003, I had gotten a book deal to write a book about public speaking, and I instinctively knew that I had to stop being a workshop facilitator for the Canadian training company I worked for. I had a book. I had to do my own work.
Terror set in. Me, start a firm?
I knew enough to know that I needed help.
Lesson #1: Don’t go it alone.
I joined a Small Business Think Tank in Manhattan to clarify what sort of firm I would launch. And I hired Kathi Elster, the host of this Think Tank, to be my business coach.
These days, that feels like the easy part. My firm was successful beyond what I had envisioned. I had a manager who ran the business. 8 associates. And we supported exceptional business enterprises in every part of the world.
Now the hard part.
The success of the firm allowed me to live in a little compound in Hollywood/Florida with a main house, a big lap pool, and a back house that served as office and guest house. The moment is still crystal clear in my mind.
I stood in the office with Kate, my fantastic instructional designer. Kate had just customized one of our signature programs for a client, as we often did. I was reviewing the adapted course materials and the tweaked PowerPoint slides Kate had created, and I had an instant flash of clarity.
I don’t want to do this anymore.
I don’t want to tweak another course. Don’t want to review another slide deck.
No more. Done.
These were very inconvenient thoughts. I banished them immediately. I mean – I owned a successful international business. I had great clients.
But each time I met with Kate to review another set of revised course slides, the same thoughts returned.
No more. Done.
I had done enough therapy to know this wasn’t old, self-destructive behavior. I wasn’t being a bad boy. No, my soul really was done with this iteration of my business.
The moment when we know it’s time to move on is a powerful one. We have the option to ignore it or banish it to the far reaches of our conscious mind. The moment, however - as it did in my case - will likely keep coming back.
Lesson #2: Know when to let it go.
When I started to mention to close friends and associates that I was thinking of selling my business, I was bombarded with a whole slew of opinions. The opinions, regardless of who offered them, were shockingly monolithic. The narrative consistently went like this:
Don’t mess with success. Hold on to what you have.
Tweak it. Add more people. But by all means, hold on.
I understood that these opinions were informed by the other party’s notions of success, stability, security. Yet it was still surprising that few people suggested that I trust myself or do what would make me happy.
Not a single person suggested what I would eventually end up doing – i.e. start a new version of my firm that better matched my evolving interests.
I trust this experience may not be unfamiliar to you. These dynamics tend to be heightened when we let go of a successful business venture – but they equally come into play the moment we decide to leave a successful corporate job or launch our own consulting business.
Related: Leadership in Chaos Starts With Thinking Like a Startup Again