The Entrepreneurial Blur? Are YOU affected by these symptoms too?

[Ravens_Shadow]

I had a call with a long-time friend from the forum yesterday and we both have this feeling that I'll call the Entrepreneurial Blur. He told me he knows of quite a few others who have this same feeling, so let's try to set a diagnosis and lay out the symptoms. For those of you who have been grinding to grow your business for 5+ years, you'll probably understand what I'm talking about. Let me try my best to put it into words:

Symptoms of Entrepreneurial Blur:​

• Your days seem to pass by quickly and you don't remember what you did a few weeks ago.
• You feel like you're stuck doing busy work day in and day out. The same thing, over, and over, and over.
• You said you were going to get quite a few big tasks done for the business 1 or 2 years ago and it still hasn't happened. These tasks keep getting pushed back, ignored, trampled over, and filed away.
• You're at a point in your business where you've reached a glass ceiling in revenue but can't find a way to get past it. It's exhausting.
• You don't feel like you're the CEO, you're just stuck doing work that "has to be done." This may be something you've been stuck doing for years.
• You can't seem to break the cycle of not being the CEO of your business. You may have a good day here or there and then bam, back in the hard, growth-less grind. Too many fires to put out.
• Progress seems scarce. You've been on the brink of your big break, the time when your business goes supersonic, for years now and that date just keeps getting pushed back. Is the light at the end of your tunnel dimming?
• You might find that you're depressed, maybe not literally, but your entrepreneurial soul is crushed beneath the weight of what needs to be done.
• Things in your personal life that usually bring joy have a grey filter over them and feel muted.

Congratulations, you have The Entrepreneurial Blur if you resonate with these 9 core symptoms.​

• You find your days passing by quickly because you aren't doing anything meaningful.
• You feel stuck doing the same thing over and over because you are.
• You haven't gotten those big tasks done that you DO have control over because you've ignored them on purpose. They're scary.
• You've reached a glass ceiling because you aren't doing the big scary tasks. You aren't being the CEO.
• You find yourself not being the CEO because you're ignoring the big and scary CEO tasks that need to be done. You feel like a failure. You're living the Blur.
• Progress seems scarce because it is scarce. Your business is on life support and you're the oxygen tank, the ventilator, the IV bag, and more. How is that healthy for you?
• You feel depressed because your soul is being crushed by the weight of doing business the way you've been doing it.

I believe that the Entrepreneurial Blur happens for three core reasons:​

1. We've deviated from our original plans. Not only have we lost our road map, we ended up stranded in the desert. We were meant to be the CEO and now we're just an email shuffler. You're in your comfort zone.
2. We've let fear take over and prevent us from doing the big tasks we've ignored for years. We've ignored them for many reasons: We're scared, we don't have the infrastructure, my business will be too big, its more commitment, it's too hard, it costs too much, I don't have the team, etc.
3. We've forgotten how amazing it is that we've gotten this far. We're so stuck in the grind it doesn't seem awesome anymore.

Only you know what you've been ignoring. Do you know the word with the closest relation to "Ignore"? Ignorance. The cost of ignorance will weigh on you and bring you down.

So what's the solution?​

1. Put together a plan of action and get your roadmap back. You're lost in the weeds.
2. Tackle those big, looming tasks. The hard ones. The CEO shit. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You've been ignoring it for far too long.
3. Talk to other entrepreneurs about these issues and then commit to being the CEO of your business.

When is the last time you told your emails to go F*ck themselves? When is the last time you called a competitor in your industry just to chat? What healthy business relationships have you fostered recently? What partnerships have you forged? What customers have you talked to within the past month? Have you used your product within the past few months? Have you relived the pain that you're solving recently? What teams have you built to relieve your burdens? What realignment have you done to get a grip on your business?

This is all CEO shit. Drop the small tasks, hire more people, and go make the impact you've been dreaming of.

 

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[ZackerySprague]

Thank you for the write up .

 

[Antifragile]

(edited to expand)

I'll speak from personal experience and how a simple model helped me over the years. For reference, my first successful business started in 2012 and shortly after I've been referencing a model called "Predictable Success" as a guide to help with better decision making.

The Predictable Success Lifecycle by Les McKeown explains this very well

Entrepreneurial Blur as either "white-water" or "treadmill"​

Early struggle. This initial stage requires you to address two simple problems:

1. Are there enough buyers for my product?
2. Do I have enough cash on hand to pay my bills?

Once you’ve identified a viable market and stabilized your cash flow, you’ll be able to move into the second stage: fun.

Your company will likely grow very quickly. Sales will flood in, bringing large amounts of revenue. Since this happy period follows the difficulties of the early struggle, it may seem like you’ve finally made it.

When an organization grows too quickly, decision-making and execution become more difficult. During this third stage, whitewater, mistakes become very common. Prepare yourself: you’ll have to devote much of your time and resources to trying to solve these problems.

I believe this is what you are discussing in this thread @Ravens_Shadow


Immediately after you’ve arrived at predictable success, you may encounter the treadmill. This phase occurs when a company becomes overly dependant on established systems, thus losing its creative streak.

This too can be the "Entrepreneurial Blur" you are describing above.

The trick is to understand where you are before coming up with a plan to solve the problem. Is the blur because you are just after "fun" and need better systems in place? Or are you so overburdened with systems that you can no longer be creative? Like running on a treadmill but staying in the same spot?

Different problems, different solutions.

...

I've created a thread on "Planning" for a business success and dove deeper into this a while back. Maybe not quite as relevant here, but more of my thoughts there:

GOLD! - EXECUTION - 8 Steps To Help You Plan for Business Success, a How-To Guide

Planning is essential to the success of any business. But what exactly should you be planning for? And how do you know if you're over-planning? There is no one way, but it is better to have a method than not. Before we go on, I lied in the title - there are no 8 steps, there never are the 8...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Put together a plan of action and get your roadmap back.

This.

 

[amp0193]

@Ravens_Shadow I think part of getting out of the blur is just recognizing it's there in the first place.

After talking it through with you yesterday, I started off today ready to go, and jumped straight for this:

2. Tackle those big, looming tasks. The hard ones. The CEO shit. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You've been ignoring it for far too long.

It was an incredibly important, but mind-numbingly soul-sucking task that only I am capable of doing, and it required 110% of my concentration that I have been putting off for 2 months. I'm halfway through, and generated $20,000 so far. It's been a while since I've done $2500 an hour CEO work.

When is the last time you told your emails to go F*ck themselves?

I didn't even open my email today, but I did make time for two prescheduled 30-min employee 1on1s.

Is the blur because you are just after "fun" and need better systems in place? Or are you so overburdened with systems that you can no longer be creative?

I am actually in both of these camps simultaneously right now, and it sucks, and is very much not fun. I've realized that every year that goes by I'm having a little less fun. I loved the explosive chaos of creating something new, throwing ideas at the wall and pursuing them immediately, going out of stock because we can't keep up, fire-fighting novel and interesting problems that popped up daily.

But then we got a handle on the chaos. But getting a handle on it sucked up all of our available time and energy and then we got in a rut with not much new in the works.

We 100% need better systems, and they are being developed.

But of the systems we do have... too many are being executed by me and I feel like I'm doing the same stuff week in and week out.

For us, the biggest missing piece is people to execute the systems. I am doing repetitive admin and operational duties that, while important, could be done by anyone. I should have a VA onboard in a couple of weeks. Then will slowly start building an overseas team in other support roles. So that me and the core team have the time to really get creative again, and start the whole cycle new.

 

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[amp0193]

Businesses grow in S-Curves.

I mistakenly thought business was a hockey stick to the upper right once you "figured it out and turned the corner"... but it actually grows in s-curves.

I recently read this in a book (The Singularity is Near - Kurzweil):

“A specific paradigm (a method or approach to solving a problem; for example, shrinking transistors on an integrated circuit as a way to make more powerful computers) generates exponential growth until its potential is exhausted. When this happens, a paradigm shift occurs, which enables exponential growth to continue.”

So the s-curve is 3 phases:

1. Slow growth (the early phase of exponential growth)
2. Rapid growth (the late, explosive phase of exponential growth)
3. A leveling off as the particular paradigm matures.

This matches my experience. Everything is cooking, we can barely keep up with demand, and then bottlenecks appear, processes break down, overwhelm and burnout, the business literally can’t grow any further until those problems are solved… but when they are in place it sets a new operational floor for the business and the business starts going on phase 1 again.

Currently our business is in phase 3 of a curve. 2023 will be our 3rd consecutive year of flat sales (but the first where I have recognized and am addressing the core issues). Next year, after bottle necks have been removed, and systems in place, and efficiencies implemented, and team onboarded, we should be able to kick off phase 1 again. It was 6 years for first s curve cycle. I think the next one will be 4-5.

I think most people quit on their business before they get to phase 2 of their first s-curve though.

 

[WJK]

I had a call with a long-time friend from the forum yesterday and we both have this feeling that I'll call the Entrepreneurial Blur. He told me he knows of quite a few others who have this same feeling, so let's try to set a diagnosis and lay out the symptoms. For those of you who have been grinding to grow your business for 5+ years, you'll probably understand what I'm talking about. Let me try my best to put it into words:

Symptoms of Entrepreneurial Blur:​

• Your days seem to pass by quickly and you don't remember what you did a few weeks ago.
• You feel like you're stuck doing busy work day in and day out. The same thing, over, and over, and over.
• You said you were going to get quite a few big tasks done for the business 1 or 2 years ago and it still hasn't happened. These tasks keep getting pushed back, ignored, trampled over, and filed away.
• You're at a point in your business where you've reached a glass ceiling in revenue but can't find a way to get past it. It's exhausting.
• You don't feel like you're the CEO, you're just stuck doing work that "has to be done." This may be something you've been stuck doing for years.
• You can't seem to break the cycle of not being the CEO of your business. You may have a good day here or there and then bam, back in the hard, growth-less grind. Too many fires to put out.
• Progress seems scarce. You've been on the brink of your big break, the time when your business goes supersonic, for years now and that date just keeps getting pushed back. Is the light at the end of your tunnel dimming?
• You might find that you're depressed, maybe not literally, but your entrepreneurial soul is crushed beneath the weight of what needs to be done.
• Things in your personal life that usually bring joy have a grey filter over them and feel muted.

Congratulations, you have The Entrepreneurial Blur if you resonate with these 9 core symptoms.​

• You find your days passing by quickly because you aren't doing anything meaningful.
• You feel stuck doing the same thing over and over because you are.
• You haven't gotten those big tasks done that you DO have control over because you've ignored them on purpose. They're scary.
• You've reached a glass ceiling because you aren't doing the big scary tasks. You aren't being the CEO.
• You find yourself not being the CEO because you're ignoring the big and scary CEO tasks that need to be done. You feel like a failure. You're living the Blur.
• Progress seems scarce because it is scarce. Your business is on life support and you're the oxygen tank, the ventilator, the IV bag, and more. How is that healthy for you?
• You feel depressed because your soul is being crushed by the weight of doing business the way you've been doing it.

I believe that the Entrepreneurial Blur happens for three core reasons:​

1. We've deviated from our original plans. Not only have we lost our road map, we ended up stranded in the desert. We were meant to be the CEO and now we're just an email shuffler. You're in your comfort zone.
2. We've let fear take over and prevent us from doing the big tasks we've ignored for years. We've ignored them for many reasons: We're scared, we don't have the infrastructure, my business will be too big, its more commitment, it's too hard, it costs too much, I don't have the team, etc.
3. We've forgotten how amazing it is that we've gotten this far. We're so stuck in the grind it doesn't seem awesome anymore.

Only you know what you've been ignoring. Do you know the word with the closest relation to "Ignore"? Ignorance. The cost of ignorance will weigh on you and bring you down.

So what's the solution?​

1. Put together a plan of action and get your roadmap back. You're lost in the weeds.
2. Tackle those big, looming tasks. The hard ones. The CEO shit. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You've been ignoring it for far too long.
3. Talk to other entrepreneurs about these issues and then commit to being the CEO of your business.

When is the last time you told your emails to go F*ck themselves? When is the last time you called a competitor in your industry just to chat? What healthy business relationships have you fostered recently? What partnerships have you forged? What customers have you talked to within the past month? Have you used your product within the past few months? Have you relived the pain that you're solving recently? What teams have you built to relieve your burdens? What realignment have you done to get a grip on your business?

This is all CEO shit. Drop the small tasks, hire more people, and go make the impact you've been dreaming of.

Part of this is the difference between being an entrepreneur and a manager. The start-up is the exciting, daring, and may I say sexy part. Then, once the business is started, it's a daily grind called running a business. The two phases take a different mindset and sometimes a different person to do those distinct jobs altogether. This is when you need to hire a management team to run the show while you do what you do best -- grow some new legs on it. You are at a classic point of business failure IF you don't make sure that the daily management chores are completed in a timely manner.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I look at this entire thing differently.

The last time I felt something like this I ended up selling my company.

Don't think any actions would have changed how I felt at the time, or about the industry.

For me, it was more like a relationship that simply needed to end, not further invested in.

 

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[Guest-5ty5s4]

A lot of this can be solved with delegation and processes and procedures. But most CEO's and business owners are scared of things falling apart - they don't want to relinquish control. So how can they if they refuse to do it?

 

[Simon Angel]

As I read this, I get the impression you're still fighting with the notion of not being good enough.

I understand feeling this way can be a powerful motivator to take action and "succeed", but I'm wondering if there'll ever be a point you truly feel successful.

While my income is far below yours I'm not particularly worried about scaling and earning more. I'm worried if I'm on the right track to living a life that aligns with my values and who I am as a person. So my question is:

Will going further from the level you're currently at even do anything for you? Will it give you meaning or provide any tangible benefits? Or is it just a pragmatic form of distraction?