Managing Yourself – Business Skill #1 To Take Your Business To The Next Level

Do you want to be successful in business? Do you want to manage people? Do you want to manage your business well?

Well, it all starts with managing YOURSELF! (Note: This is one of the 8 key skills needed to be successful in business!)

In this video, we’ll talk a bit about that concept. It’s really, really key and really important.

A lot of people want to skip past this step. They want to ignore it and just act like everything will fall into place.

The ability you have to manage yourself is the limiting factor in your business 9 times out of 10.

When I say managing yourself, what do I even mean?

There are a few different levels this applies to.

Time Management

One of the first is time management.

This is especially a priority for brand-new entrepreneurs.

Whenever you work for a job for someone else you just have to show up on time. You do the work. You go home. You don’t have to be super organized in coordinating your schedule.

Whenever you take that same idea though, and…

• now you have an infinite number of things to do on your to-do list.
• it’s hard to even prioritize which one you should do,
• not enough time is available
• you have to balance between billable and unbillable hours to get all of the work done.

Now, the structure of your time is essential.

You get to this critical mass early on where you can keep things in your head.

Then you do more and more and more in addition you can start dropping things, forgetting to follow up with people, and just excusing your actions by saying you are “too busy.”

You’re actually probably just not organized enough!

Organization Can Be Learned!

Personally, I was not a super organized person.

I remember in middle school, having real struggles trying to know what homework I was supposed to do or when a test was coming up.

I am NOT naturally an organized person.

But what I found in entrepreneurship was that I had to manage myself.

Emergency Management

The reason is that you have these emergencies that pop up all the time as an entrepreneur. They are unexpected emergencies.

You have to therefore do everything you can to prevent preventable emergencies!

It starts with time management.

Know what’s happening in your week.

Know when a project is due so you can backdate the different tasks to have it done on time.

Know that you need to spend time on these other tasks over time or they will just get absorbed into your busy days and not get completed because they’re not the billable hours spent in front of a customer.

Time management is key. I have other older posts that can walk you through some helpful time management tips.

• The Unbroken Calendar Line
• The Simple Power Of A 3 – 5 Item Daily List
• Self Accountability – Slay The Dragon

Emotional Management

Emotional management is the second key concept.

It is a roller coaster to be an entrepreneur, sometimes you’re riding high – things are going great – you have all this energy.

Sometimes you’re just kind of getting kicked in the teeth and you’re really down.

Your ability to manage those emotions to let them go is really key to your success.

Another important part of managing yourself is being aware of your emotions, how you’re feeling, and just in general self-awareness.

Self Awareness

There’s no one from the outside telling you exactly what to do. You’re the one collecting data from your experience.

There is a giant temptation just to keep our heads down and do the work that’s right in front of us and not look up.

To NOT take stock of what’s around us and determine what the best path is forward.

Whenever we do that and we have our heads down, we are not observant of the different things going on. We’re not self-aware.

And without that self-awareness (no one else can be aware of for us), no one else can step in and say “You know what your team culture isn’t as good as it could be.” or “You know what, you’re not clear on your finances.”

It’s further complicated because, from the outside world, we feel this great pressure to really act like we have everything together.

This “fake it before you make it” type of approach is useful in some areas, but it is NOT good for growth. (It can be good for showing some confidence and credibility that you know what you’re doing so that customers hire you. It is not helpful if you’re trying to grow and adapt.)

Managing Yourself To Take Your Business To The Next Level

In managing ourselves, we have to focus on

• managing our time
• managing our emotions
• and being self-aware.

Those are the things that get our business to the next level.

Without these three things, or if any of these pieces are missing, these will be the obstacles you’re going to run into time and time again until you deal with them.

As Peter Drucker one of the all-time most respected thinkers on management said –

“That one can truly manage other people is by no means adequately proven. But one can always manage oneself.”

Let me know any questions you have.

Have a great day. Keep up the good work!