Don’t Worry, Be Happy!
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I recently had a thank you gift sent to me from a special client. This gift is a terrific read and now I am hooked as a subscriber. It is a great magazine for small business owners in particular.
Inc. is a magazine designed for Growing Companies. Now I am not here to solicit subscribers, I just want to share some of the wisdom found in this magazine.
One particular article concerned a business man who owned his own virtual software company. “Driven to Distraction”, found in the “Get Real” section of the magazine and written by Jason Fried. Embedded in the article was an illustration of a man who was surrounded by horse-fly’s buzzing all around him; with a half-crazed look on his face, the poor man was hiding for cover with both arms covering his head. The subject matter and moral of the story is, “it just doesn’t matter”.
If you had to guess, what do you suppose the story is about? Is the man fed up with his business? Does he want to quit life? Business? Does he want to throw in the towel to success? Is the word failure in his vocabulary?
Actually, his web design virtual business was good. He had started it in his apartment as a solo entrepreneur, working with all the advantages of working virtual…no commute, cubicles, or traffic, and his clients were happy with his work.
The one thing he couldn’t shake, was his nervousness over his expanding business. He felt he needed to go to the next level and compete in his field. He needed to make his Request for Proposals longer and shinier. Like a lot of virtual companies, he started saying, “we” instead of “I” to indicate that his company was larger than it really was to impress his clients. He also started to bad mouth his competition, which is a no-no in business anywhere. Why was he so nervous?
He “succumbed” to his own word called laziness. He was so busy, trying to be bigger and better he realized he forgot one important thing about himself, that he loved work, but not to work so HARD. He was writing proposals and slinging mud at the competition but that wasn’t him. So he did a turn-around and wrote shorter proposals, quit worrying about the competition and as the story goes, he got more work and even better clients. He was managing his business more efficiently, slept better and just quit worrying about the future.
His company now has 16 employees. They don’t make 5 year plans, or do projections and forecasts, AND they are no longer scared, worried, or insecure. His theory was to spend more time on what happens NOW, not in the future. Now his motto is,
“Tomorrow, Eventually, Next quarter, Next year”…all those words need to be thrown away…they are NOT necessary words to success. They just don’t matter. His theory is not to stop thinking about the future, it is to stop worrying about today…go on get lazy and just work for today.
June 10th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
This is my first time i visit here. I found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all the enjoyment here keep up the good work.
June 12th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I love it!
June 19th, 2010 at 9:43 am
well-written, and good analysis
June 29th, 2010 at 6:42 am
Hmmm…The same case is with me. I haven’t reached the stage where he is now but this is great that to hear that problems and nervousness ends up one day. Even i am confused and feeling insecure about starting a business as not sure what will happen to me when i will change the proposals from “I” to “We”..
There are incidences where your clients loves freelancers other than companies to get some work done. Even after opening a company your rates surely go higher as you need to take care about every expenses..
Very nice read and really something motivational..
I have bookmarked your blog and will surely visit it again to know more of such stories…