This time it's personal
Another coaching conversation this week with Erica got me reflecting on one of the chief differences between our lives as corporate employees and as business owners. And that’s the blurring of our personal lives with our business lives.
Of course everyone has faced that to a degree this year as we’ve been forced to work from home. But when you work for yourself it’s permanent and the blurring is much deeper.
For much of this year, I’ve wrestled somewhat pointlessly (but maybe it’s been necessary) with an identity crisis – no longer a corporate junkie, not ready to be an entrepreneur.
I think I’ve said before I don’t think I could have found my purpose until I left bp, even though I’m not sure it’s radically changed between then and now. Releasing me from the job somehow made its articulation easier, but maybe it was as simple as I couldn’t live my purpose at bp and now I can.
What Erica and I really talked about was the need to get these two – personal and business – in balance.
It’s a good time to think about balance because the end of the year inevitably prompts some reflection as well as some looking forward. I’ve been wanting to get some ideas on paper for January so I can rest over Christmas safe in the knowledge there’s no terrifying blank sheet of paper facing me on January 1.
The thing Erica helped me see was that every Familiarize objective needs to have a business outcome as well as a personal one. At first I couldn’t see why, but I came to see that alignment of the two increases the chance I will actually deliver it. Like:
I need to be much more external facing in 2022 to generate sales (business outcome) and because for the first time I am now the expert and I need to be the face of Familiarize (personal outcome).
I suspect I could have read this idea in a book whilst at bp and carefully constructed objectives that met both needs, but I don’t honestly think I could have done it authentically, it would have been contrived – because the business outcomes weren’t mine (they were bp’s) and my personal outcomes rarely lined up with (bp’s) business outcomes.
Now they do. In a really strong way. And when they don’t, like one we talked about “Building a community” which might be a good way to generate leads, but feels like a long slog and doesn’t hugely excite me (yet) - the lack of congruence stands out. I can add it to my list of objectives for 2022, but I’m 90% confident I won’t deliver it – not unless something changes to make it feel more personally fulfilling.
Many of the topics I’ve covered this year I think are essentially making the same point.
Ownership, which I talked about in January demands extreme levels of effort but brings stand-out rewards; Making money when it’s all up to you opens up all sorts of inner conflicts and discussions with those we love, but we have the opportunity to really earn our money which is so much better for our soul; the Self-promotion we need to do is hugely intrusive into our private lives as we embody our business, but of course when it works we build more than five minutes of fame, we get a chance to sustain it.
There’s no two ways about this, working like this places more demands on us than we faced as salaried employees. As 2021 draws to a close, see if these help you reflect and plan:
1. Look at what you’ve achieved this year through those two lenses: personal and business. Which stand out?
2. For those things you didn’t do or deliver, was there a personal dimension missing or holding you back? I bet there was.
3. When you think about what you want to achieve in 2022, try to marry up a personal outcome you need to fulfil with every business outcome. Get them as aligned as possible.
4. Part of the reason we need a break over the holiday period is because we’ve invested so much personally in what we’re doing. It will be difficult for all of us to switch off, but try we must, because otherwise we will hurt our chances of sprinting off the starting blocks.
5. The personal outcomes are like the fuel for the business outcomes; they are usually more complex to understand and articulate, so a good investment before next year is to try to understand yourself better. There are tonnes of books to help with this, but nothing is better than a walk on your own to keep challenging yourself ‘why that’s important’.
Enjoy this! We have a chance to get business and personal aligned, with the latter powering the former.
We are incredibly fortunate to be able to combine purpose, mission, strategy and goals; most corporates spend weeks in boring chain hotels word-smithing something meaningless just so it offends the smallest number of people!
Enjoy some R&R&R – Rest, Relaxation and Reflection. I’ll be back in a fortnight for my last of the year.