I know you can be hard on yourself, but you are doing so many things right already.
You care about your people.
As a business owner, a leader, you are aware, that you are number one employee, you are here to serve your people. You serve your customers and you serve your employees.
What many people don’t see, is all the hours you put in when you are not in the office or on the terrain. All the hours you are thinking about how to improve your business, how to bring in more profit, that will allow your business to grow, while keeping your people happy. All the hours you put in trying to understand your people, so that you can maintain the fine balance between you giving them what they need, so that they can give you what you need, and what organisation need.
All the hours you put in creating business – connecting with people, building network, onboarding new clients, new businesses partners. All the work you do in your head, while it seem like you are not doing anything and yet without it many people actually couldn’t go to work.
All the emails and phone calls. And you might have a bit of introversion or shyness under it, you also fear rejection sometimes or someone laughing at you, yet you do what you got to do, because you have people, who depend on you. All the sleepless nights, when you are not sure how you are going to pay your workers. And yet you do, you find a way.
The nights when it feels like you have a night shift, because you are dreaming about your work and trying to solve the problems. The nerves, when you want to try something new, bring in something that makes perfect sense, yet you know it will be met with resistance.
You have your business, you have your product, that you sell. And yet, no matter what your company produce, majority of your work is about people. You are in service industry either way. Sometimes it’s hard to trust people, yet without trust there’s no business. And you try your best to distinguish whom you can trust with what. And you do your best to be a person, that is trustworthy.
Not only in business, but also in personal relationships.
You are doing so well.
I know you still have big plans for the future. There is still so much you want to accomplish. I want to honour your ambition, your drive, your relentlessness. And at the same time, I want you to stop for a moment and look back, how far you came.
You brought something, that was an idea in your mind, into reality. And not only for yourself, also for others. In collaboration with other people.
A few weeks ago I spoke with a friend, and she said, how it is sad, that us people don’t collaborate more. And while I agree with her that we could collaborate more with each other, I also pointed out in how many ways we already do. For example, there is about 1,5 billion of cars in use on this planet. Most drivers do their best to follow the rules, so that they drive safely. With all the bikers and pedestrians included in the traffic, this is a beautiful example of how us people collaborate every day, without even thinking about it.
We collaborate in all kinds of businesses, from heavy industry to coffee places, from banks to Etsy shops. All of it is intertwined. Sometimes, when I drive, I look at signs on trucks and wonder, what produce they transport. Where do they go? Who is going to unload this? Where? How many people were involved in creating whatever they drive. Where were materials sourced? Who are all those people behind whatever is in that truck?
People and businesses. Businesses, that were created by people, for people. That employ to people, that sell to people and to other businesses, that were created by people.
And while we face so many challenges globally, while you face so many challenges in your organisation, thank you for trying your best to bring as much humanity in your interactions with people as you can.
Thank you for continually doing your best to improve, so you can be a better leader. Thank you for caring about your people.
P.S.: I just came across the following post on LinkedIn (you can follow me there, btw).
It was surprising to me, how in the LinkedIn poll majority of people said that in the best job they ever had, they felt respected. It was surprising to me, how not alone I am in this. I once worked on a project, where we build something important, I could work independently, and I was very good in my role, yet I felt disrespected by the leader many times and in my memory it is one of the worst project I worked on, even though my heart was really in it. And there were other projects where I am still grateful I had a chance to work on them, because I felt respected and appreciated for my contribution.
And if I reflect on my solopreneurship, damn, I could definitely use someone to tell my boss she should respect me more 😉
And that’s one of the roles of the coach. We definitely see, where you are doing things right, where you should celebrate yourself more, which then gives you more energy to improve on the things (or delegate them) where you are not so strong. If you are looking for a remote coach (or hybrid, if you are in Slovenia), that will assist you in building (even) better culture in your company, reach out to me at anita@anitapuksic.com and we will schedule a strategy call to discover your main struggles and therefore areas of growth and your key resources that will unlock next level of success.
With Love,
