6 Cycles of an Entrepreneur
Last night one of my clients asked me a question. It was something like this: 'So seven years ago you were just starting out. Now you're here. What have you noticed?'
As I spoke I realised that, mostly, what I had noticed were cycles. Cycles that had repeated, each one, several times since I first set out on this chapter of my life, which in some ways we can say started with the beginnings of my coaching business in 2015.
As part of preparing the 12-Minute Method books for publication, those cycles have sometimes become clear: reading back my writing from three years ago shows me things that without creating these books I wouldn't have noticed.
These aren't cycles for everyone, but I suspect that none of them are just cycles for me.
The boom-bust-boom-bust-boom cycle. And it ends on a boom here because the graph of the money and clients in my business is currently ascending. If I'd written it earlier this year I might well have ended the way that was written as 'bust'. I still remember the value for me - someone who had never run a business before - of running it part-time at first. As one of my mentors, Rich Litvin, would say, 'If you need a client, you don't need a client, you need a job.' Or to paraphrase Liz Gilbert in Big Magic, it's not fair to rest all your material needs on your calling. That's too much pressure to put on something that might be fragile and precious. Day jobs get a bad rap. Working three days a week in a training organisation and two days a week in coaching allowed me to go through this cycle several times without my whole livelihood resting on it. Now it still felt like hell sometimes, but on some level, I was 'safer' than if everything had rested on coaching. And the boom-bust cycle has continued. Overall, in this moment I feel I can say that the line of the business is going up, but there are ups and downs within that. And I'm pretty sure a bust will come.
The 'It's time to get a job' cycle. 2022 is - as far as I can remember - the first year where I haven't (yet) thought: 'Fuck this. I need to get a job.' The safety, the relief of everything not resting on me. The sense that I could just show up and get paid. The easy life. The relief at going back to doing work that I just don't care that much about. All of those are so tempting sometimes. So far I've resisted them because - tempting as they are - I know on some level that they won't satisfy my soul. But I've also come to learn: that just because I have those thoughts doesn't mean I'm not meant to be doing this.
The goal-setting cycle. With its success and its failures. I've written every year for the past three years about my annual goal-setting cycles. They are cycles of learning about what I want, what I can create and what holds me back. They are very powerful for making me take action. It doesn't always feel nice, but it feels good and it is absolutely a part of what makes me look prolific in what I create.
The vision-creating cycle. Twice now I have set visions. Once a two-year vision based on an exercise Phil Bolton gave me, once a five-year vision using Debbie Millman's plan for a remarkable life exercise. What is remarkable about this is that they have, in spirit, been created. This is something I've noticed with vision-creation with clients, too: we'll often get the exact details wrong, but the spirit of the vision will be true to our souls if we answer the questions with as much honesty as we can. It is wild to me that if a couple of things happen as expected in the second half of this year, my 2017 Five-Year Plan For a Remarkable Life will have come true, in spirit, just 8 months or so late. Of course these didn't just come true: but when we answer as well as we can the question: what do we want? And then we take action regularly in our lives, leaning into fear and Resistance, and regularly reflect, then the things we want are often possible.
The doing my own work cycle: no matter how much time I think I've 'sorted' something about myself. Whether relationships, creativity, scheduling, collaborations or something else, I keep running into challenges. This is because the world keeps asking more of me. Nothing is 'sorted', but there's a new level of sorted that can be achieved.
The creating new ideas cycle: I sometimes do something for the first time. So do we all. By now I've seen the cycle: sometimes they work and become part of an ongoing practice. Sometimes they disappear without trace. I never know which one they're going to be when I start them. And I know that there will be more. Partly because of who I am, partly because of the goal-setting cycle, partly because I know the power of creativity, partly because I've got good at not listening to Resistance. But I know the cycle will continue.
These are the cycles I've noticed in my business. They help me ride out the rough times and the smooth. What cycles have noticed? And what impact do they have?
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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