Thought Bubble - The Lonely Entrepreneur

VIDEO: 9:58

AUTHOR: Robert Craven

It's hard being at the top. Being a business leader can be lonely. You need to be a million things to a million different people and the pressure that you're under is immense. Listen to this video short from Robert where he talks about being a lonely entrepreneur.

Transcription:

Robert Craven  00:07 

Hi, I'm Robert Craven. I'd like to talk about entrepreneurship, and loneliness. And more specifically, I want to talk about running your own business and running your own business and loneliness. I think it's something that we all kind of recognise exists, but we don't necessarily kind of grab hold of it and deal with it in a proper manner. So running your own business means doing things differently. It means you see that as an opportunity, it means you want to be the boss, it means you want to return to run things, it means that you're willing to take on all the responsibility that goes on with it, I think people fully under underestimate what that actually really means to people. Yeah, this means I do stuff differently. I am not an employee, I am not following things day by day. It also means recognising that you're going to deal with failure, whether that failure is the miniscule little failure, that happens every day that you don't get a sale or a client send something back, or the bigger failure that that one year campaign has failed, or that even bigger failure, that that business venture you've been running for three years hasn't worked, you're dealing with failure all the time. So there's this psychological thing going on the noise, voice in your head telling you whether you're right or not. And that's not that's not kind of normal, I know we think it is, but can I just assure you that most people do their job, go home, have their tea, watch the television, go to the pub, you know, and they don't have those voices in their head in the same way that you do. And you're running your own business, that sense of putting the business first having a mobile phone with you all the time, answering calls from customers and suppliers as and when they turn up. 

Robert Craven  01:56 

 Because you know, you are the boss, you are the leader, you know, and, and what tends to happen is your staff agree with you because it's easy to agree with you and you're, you're paying them. So you can't trust a couple of things. You can't trust their feedback, because they're going to agree with you. Secondly, you become almost like the boss at home, you're the boss at work, you're the boss, with clients, your boss, with the sales team, you almost become the boss at home, you kind of take on that role. You think that's who you are. And the people you're dealing with feel intimidating and bamboozled by you, they think you're clever or smarter or different. Meanwhile, you are being bamboozled by shiny objects, every advert that says, you know, 10 days to get your business to seven figures or your money back just to try this social media, this, that and the other how to data, some of those things may be true. But meanwhile, while you're trying to stay ahead of the pack, understand what's going on, understand what the competition is doing, understand what the competitors are doing. Understand what the customers want, understand the changing customer needs, all that kind of going on, you're also trying to run the business at the same time, you know, and, and that coupled with a sense, you know, that you can do everything better, better and quicker. Delegating is hard, I think we are better. And we understand how to delegate way better now than we used to. But it's it's tough, letting go. It's tough, trusting people is tough, letting people do stuff their own different way.  

Robert Craven  03:40 

So we shouldn't be surprised at running a business is a really lonely place. running an agency is really the only you've got to make urgent decisions. That's a tough call, you know, like, yes, no, are we going to demand our money back? Are we not? Are we gonna do? Is it worth the 10 quid? Is it worth 100 quid? We've got to make the important decisions. What's the strategy for next year? Do we drop the product that's really difficult, you know, because we've got we've got finite information, and everyone seems to be doing these things so well. But we have finite information and finite size of brain finite number advisors. So in the end, you know, whether we like it or not, is on you, and only you and and that and that's a difficult spot to be in because you're desperately trying to do the right do it right. So is it any wonder with all that great big list then ends up being a disconnect between you and your and your friends and your family, you? Your brain is still at work when you're meant to be socialising you fall asleep at dinner parties. 

Robert Craven  04:45 

And progressively your your belief is that unless you get the business sorted out, the friends and family won't work and then the years have gone by and then you've you've drifted away or you've not been as connected as as you should. And it's almost like you know You hear people who run businesses saying, you know, no one seems to understand me it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. No one seems to understand me. And so hey, guess what no one seems to understand you created a vicious cycle. Now, in the book by Louis Schiff, I called the middle class millionaire. He shows that that these people, the rich, primarily, entrepreneurial types, have succeeded in crowding out of their lives. Friendship, they've always chose to do it, because they're maxed out at work and, and home commitments. So Work comes first and then home and friendship gets lost. And that creates, by definition, a gap a gap, I safe place to discuss and share personal issues. And as well as as well as celebrating what's what's really worked. So you need to recognise the signs and symptoms of of being being lonely. I think the list I've just gone through is pretty clear. You need to recognise, you know, when that loneliness is alone, which is I do stuff alone, quietly. And that's cool.  

Robert Craven  06:18 

Versus loneliness, which is feeling that you're missing something feeling, you're not supported feeling, you're not getting the help, feeling, feeling that there's no one there to help you and feeling pretty wretched about it. as, quote Mother Teresa, the most terrible poverty is loneliness. The most terrible poverty is loneliness. I fundamentally believe that, you know, there we are running the business, talking to our team, leading the sales team going into see clients, talking to the bank. I think we're great at putting on that front. But loads of us have that real sense of loneliness. So what are the solutions? Kind of in reverse order? I guess, yeah, friends and family, family, family, family, family, family, family, friends, family. 

Robert Craven  07:13 

But there's this conundrum about the family got to understand why you do it, or they've got to let you do it. Or you there's got to be a payoff. If you're going to be a workaholic for 40 weeks a year, the other 12 you spent all the time with them? Can you really change or are you always going to be chasing that next big deal. But but but family first, and friends and friends are really, really important? Then you've got those kind of what I describe as therapies like yoga, mindfulness, exercise, whatever it is, that kind of releases you from, from feeling pent up and allows you to have your shoulders drop down and for you to get a sense of what's really going on. And then I guess the other piece will be things like coaching, or mentoring consultancy mastermind groups, dives into things which we haven't to do. And I fundamentally believe that what many of us now include myself now, as someone who runs a business, you know, what we're looking for, is kinda like a dare I say, a new best friend, a new best friend, someone who is there for us, someone who is there to nudge us when we're not sure whether we should make a decision, someone who's there to say, actually, it's okay to back off someone who's, who's there to say, you know, it's Thursday, you've done awesome, well take Friday off, you know, someone to say, let's sit down and look at these numbers and figure out what's really going on. Because I just think we lose perspective of what's going on. Now, this new best friend isn't going to be with you every single day of your life. But I think a sense of having someone outside yourself, who isn't kind of involved and engaged in what you're doing is an incredibly powerful thing. So I have my own mastermind group, I have my own coach, and I find them absolutely awesome. And that is why we work in the way that we do because everyone who works here, has been through coaching has been through masterminds and recognises the value of having that kind of new best friend. Anyhow, it started to feel a bit like cry Christmas, charity sort of thing. Look after the lonely entrepreneur, if you can spare just 10 per week, but I think is a really serious thing, especially when the economy is is all over the place. And I think you know, it's something that you should think about how can you invest and protect and defend yourself so that you don't get lonely as someone who runs your own business? Thanks for listening.