I got the idea from Roy. Toward the end of 2006, hurtling toward the end of an exhausting, shocking year, he declared to me in a business meeting that the following year would be his Year of Low Thoughts. He would spend the year working on things that didn’t pull mental muscle.
What a brilliant idea. Rather than an overwhelming list of resolutions, why not pick one overarching theme for the year.
I’ve done it since.
- 2007: The Year of Autism
- 2008: The Year of Atonement
- 2009: The Year of Saying “No”
- 2010: The Year of Baby Steps
- 2011: The Year of Growing Pains
2012 is The Year of Sucking It Up.
We’re in the process of transforming this lumbering beast of a practice into a business.
I got this phrase from Dave Ramsey in EntreLeadership, one of the books I read over the holidays:
You should be putting in ridiculous hours that are all creating extra income for several months to ensure you really need help. Just being overworked isn’t enough; you need to have income created by that work to pay people. Seems obvious, but a lot of people go from a micro business to hiring just because they are tired, not because they are profitable. Small business is not for wimps; suck it up until you make a profit, then you can expand. Until you are making a profit you don’t have anything you want more of anyway.
This week, we’ll give you a glimpse into some things behind our curtain, and we hope you’ll do the same.
Can you synthesize down your year into one central theme? What is it? Why?
Write it down. Keep it simple. Say it straight.
tjm
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