Do You Know What You’re Doing?
“When you’re up to your armpits in alligators,
it’s hard to remember that your original goal
was to drain the swamp.”
I had a great chat with Mark Harai on Facebook the other day and I asked if he’d like to do a guest post for LFI on something about life that he couldn’t post on his business blog. He replied that he could write about anything meaningful on his blog because his blog is about business as it pertains to life. You can’t separate the two, Mark said, and I’m glad he doesn’t try because he brings a great deal of strong-minded thinking to both.
Our conversation got me thinking about the best advice I’ve ever heard about business. It was from The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. Gerber says that most businesses fail because business owners spend too much time working in their business and not enough time working on their business. They get so caught up in the day-to-day workings of the business that they neglect the important task of stepping back and evaluating the business as a whole.
I wonder; is that something we do not only with our businesses but with our lives? Are we so busy with the day-to-day activities that we don’t stop and take a good look at our lives as a whole, evaluating our goals and dreams and the actions we take toward realizing them? Are we fighting alligators when our intention was to drain the swamp?
Maybe you’re more like me – spending too much time working on your life and not enough time in it. If it’s important to achieve that balance in business, how much more important is it to achieve it in life?
As for business, I’ve taken positive action in this regard. Lately I’ve been spending my mornings largely working on my business and afternoons working in it. Now if I could just figure out how to do this with my life.
Do you achieve this balance? How do you tend to yourself with the same dedication as you tend to your business or your career? Are you working more on your life than flowing through it?
Photo credit: Vancouver Bites!