Sometimes the hard things turn out to be easy

As we begin a new year we often find ourselves looking back over the past year as well as thinking of how 2010 will be for us. I find myself in the very fortunate position of being able to talk to many entrepreneurs on a weekly basis and many times it is their positive unstoppable attitude that encourages me to keep going and face some of the hard things that life puts in our way. I had two such conversations the other day and both wound up surprisingly the same way. For many of us 2009 was a year of taking hits, assessing the damage and creating plans to repair the damage. 2010 not only will be a good year but it has to be a good year! 2010 will be, it must be, a year for building.

Although 2010 is a year we must build, we actually have three options; we can continue to take hits and put out fires blaming the economy, greed, the weather, whatever, for our continuing struggle; we can go back to what we were doing back before we decided to spread our entrepreneurial wings, reliving the reasons we wanted out or we can determine that 2009 is over, we learned some lessons but now it is time to move forward. For most of us there is only one choice, in 2010 we must build.

Building our businesses will require an honest look at what we are doing and accessing just how effective those things are. Processes that worked like a charm a year or two ago may no longer work today. Building our businesses now also requires a new focus on the bottom line. In years where revenue was easily generated we could afford to take our eye off of expenses. We no longer have that luxury and controlling our expenses is just as important as generating additional income.

Building in 2010 is not just about business it is also about building or rebuilding relationships. Taking the hits that many of us took in 2009 can put serious stress on our relationships. Relationships with our family, friends and even business associates suffer as we lose trust in each other. It is a natural instinct when things go wrong to look around in order to find fault and lay blame. 2010 must also be a year to build relationships. Without the support of those that truly love us and want the best for us building a business is difficult and pretty much pointless.

Building sometimes seems to be hard and if we look at it as a whole it might even seem impossible, but if we break it down into steps it begins to look possible. As we execute those steps we will look back and say “Why was I dreading doing that? That was easy”. Sometimes the hardest part about doing something is deciding to do it and then taking the first step.

I recently had an experience with doing something I thought would be hard but it turned out to be easy. I learned to be a fire eater. That’s right I ate fire! I went to an event where I knew at some point we would be given the chance to eat fire. The group leader told us that after lunch he would teach us how to eat fire. I thought “good there will be some detailed instruction, practice drills and plenty of discussion of technique.” I was wrong. The instruction took about 30 seconds and the practice took another 30 seconds. It turns out there are only four steps to eating fire. (I would give you the four steps but I could not live with myself if you set your living room on fire) Before the fire eating, Marshal Sylver, our instructor, asked us if we thought it would be hard to eat fire. We all answered yes. Afterwards, he asked how many of us now found out how easy it was to eat fire. Again we all answered yes. Then came the big question how many things stand in our way because we think that they are too hard to do when if we actually did them we would find out that it was easy. I ask you the same question in choosing to build in 2010.
See my FIRE EATING VIDEO>>