Add Fun To Your Entrepreneurial Endeavors
January 24, 2010
Lately I’ve run across more than one budding entrepreneur who makes building a business out to be nothing but serious and a lot of 
hard work. I’ve been pondering this a lot. Our energy follows our thoughts. When we hold only serious energy toward anything, it BECOMES hard to us. We fulfill our own expectations. We start believing that there is too much to do, too much to learn, and that we are overwhelmed. Here are just a few examples I’ve run across in the past months:
- It’s no fun to pay attention to weekly income and expenses.
- It’s no fun to carve out the time needed to work on my business, not in it.
The truth is, your business will flourish the more you weave fun into it. When we look forward to learning something new rather than thinking it will be overwhelmingly difficult, we create energy toward our own success. When we hold our work lightly, it feels much less burdensome and hard. We end up with a more positive energy toward the things we have to do. We all know this, but when it comes to our work we sometimes tend to forget it. We think we have to labor at our work, or keep it separate from our fun.
Dread has no place in your life as an entrepreneur. You didn’t set yourself up to be the boss of you just to feel dread toward your work, did you? 
One way to handle feeling too burdened or overwhelmed is to make sure you inject some fun and things you truly enjoy into your business. Tiny pleasures or large ones, they all help you succeed in your work.
Here’s just a small example. I’ve always loved the color turquoise, so to inject a little bit of fun into the work of updating one of my websites, I used it and asked Facebook friends what color to pair it with. I ended up with a dynamic combo of my fav turquoise paired with peach. I love it, and I had fun I had pulling it together. (You can check out the result at suepainter.com.) How fun it was to read the other day that turquoise has been named “color of the year.”
Often I encourage my clients to plan personal retreats to work out their stuck places and to work on their business planning. These are fun despite being productive. Go where you’ve been wanting to go, or return to a place you enjoy. Not only does the prospect of a trip create a welcoming energy, you are so easily able to work on your business rather than in it, getting away from the day-to-day routine. Go by yourself, or pair up with another entrepreneur who also wants to hammer out some work. You can weave breaks into your day, walk on the beach, get a nice dinner, shop. But for the most part, you are giving yourself uninterrupted time to invest in your business. Don’t sabotage yourself by making this a family vacation, either. It’s not – it’s for YOU.
You can also form a small Mastermind group with people you truly enjoy, and meet by phone or in person to help each other with business issues. Make it fun – meet over a good bottle of wine, take a walk, whatever you enjoy. For a while last year, I did this with another entrepreneur by meeting her to water walk and swim together. We’d do that, then get into the warm therapy pool and stretch both our bodies and our views of our businesses.
Do you have staff or employees in your business? In nice weather, try meeting outdoors with a picnic lunch. Just think about ways to bring joy and pleasure into your endeavor. You’ll benefit both in your spirit and your bottom line. Think easy-peasy, not hard. Think mastery, not failure. Think simple steps, not big overwhelming project. You didn’t put yourself in business to feel fearful, down or out. You put yourself in business to serve others and create a world of work that meets your income and lifestyle wishes. Fun will help you get there, even in small doses!
(c) Sue Painter
Why Retreats For Entrepreneurs Help To Build Business Success
December 2, 2009
Entrepreneurs are “on” just about all the time. We’re the business owners who juggle more than one role in the business. We often wake up with new ideas swimming in our heads. We see possibilities where others don’t. In fact, we often have too many ideas for our own good! It’s widely known that solo professionals and entrepreneurs suffer from what is called “bright shiny object syndrome” – that is, we have so many ideas that it it sometimes hard to keep our focus on the one we’re working on right now.
Most of us are busy not only within our business, but also have roles in family and community, as well. As our business begins to take off, we have less of the quiet time we need to work “on” the business rather than “in” the business. And, because we expend a high degree of energy, we need respite. In fact, where we get our new ideas and renew our energy is often while we are on retreat.
My formula for fantastic business success is to regularly pull myself away from my business. This stretches me in several ways.
- It forces me to train employees and trust them to run day-to-day operations while I am away.
- It forces me to clear my calendar and budget for personal business retreat time.
- It helps me keep my own ego out of the business and put my attention on the present and future possibilities.
- It forces me to change my daily environment, literally getting a fresh perspective for myself and my business.
In fact, one mark of an entrepreneur who thinks too small is one who insists he cannot get away from his own business. This a sure sign of overwhelm, fatigue, and over-control. Here are five tips for how to do quarterly business retreats that will refuel you and your business.
- Decide what is really nurturing for you, and select accordingly. Your body and spirit may need anything from physical exertion to sunshine.
- Stay within your budget. Retreat centers range from free (monasteries) to the ultimate luxurious destination. Don’t stress yourself more by going into debt.
- Plan far ahead. Clear your calendar 3 to 4 months ahead of time. This gives you plenty of time to make travel arrangements and a bit of time put away some money. It also gives you something to look forward to, a time you know you’ll rest.
- Put away the guilty feelings. It is a gift to model self-care and nurturing to those you care for.
- Enter and come back lightly. Schedule a lighter day before you go and when you come back. You’ll reap more benefits if you are not pressed to the last minute before you leave, and have a day to acclimate when you return.
Think about your work style and take what you need with you. A few pads of paper, pencils or pens, a computer, a list of ideas you’ve had and need to assess, a list of problem areas you need to think clearly about should all be in your briefcase. Because I work on computer, I will only go places where I can get Internet access. Which, these days, is just about anywhere!
Make your retreat a combination of rest, daydreaming, good food, activity, and work time. Your mind will clear and you will gain instant focus on things that have been bugging you as your mind, body, emotions, and spirit relax and renew. Things that seem truly frustrating and unending will suddenly become clear. You’ll find yourself making decisions you’ve wallowed on about and wondering why you thought it was so hard!
I recommend quarterly retreats, a week at a time. At the least, get away for 4 days. Stay away from e-mail and the phone as much as you can, and at the most check it only once a day. Take a break from social media, too. Your business issues will lessen and juicy new possibilities will flow. You’ll get back home enthused and renewed, and that alone boosts your business success.
(c) Sue Painter
Animals, Business, and Spirit
May 27, 2008
In this week’s The Confident Marketer e-zine, I talk about pelicans and the four key business traits they taught me last week. (To get the e-zine, click on the subscribe link to the right). One of my dogs, Jake the Tough Boy, taught me how to yawn and loosen up my jaws – useful when I wake up with clenched teeth. Another of our dogs, Phoebe the Huntress, reminds me to lay on my back and stretch a few times a day. (Dogs, by the way, will lay on their back with paws in the air to give themselves an adjustment to their spine!)
Years ago, I peered into a microscope in a high school lab, and got a lesson in the value of persistence. As I stared at a hydra-headed little being, I obeyed the teacher’s instructions to cut off one of the heads. I quickly saw that the tiny creature immediately grew another head and went on its merry way. I remember watching how easily it just went off in another direction and did its thing. Totally adaptable, without complaint, it lived its little hydra life.
One of our very beloved dogs, P.V. Cousteau, taught my husband and I the value of indomitable spirit and the virtues of play. Cousteau, as you might guess, had a thing for water and another thing for balls. For seventeen and a half wonderful, happy years Cousteau found a way to put play into the most mundane of household tasks. The minute I pulled out our vacuum cleaner he ran for his ball, delightedly dropping it in front of the vacuum, knowing I would soon have to shove it out of my way. It was a great game to him. To Cousteau, folding laundry become a game of quickly dropping his ball in the middle of whatever I was folding, then waiting until I impatiently flicked the ball out of my way.
We limit ourselves when we think we can only learn from other humans. Animals get on with life, self-care, and their business without complaint and efficiently. Be curious and watch. You’re sure to learn something from an animal that serves the business of your life.