When I started attending therapy sessions at the age of 18, it hurt so much to be vulnerable. I always like to make the analogy of personal growth with Peeling an onion. An onion has so many layers to it, and so do we.
The journey to personal development and growth can be painful and challenging. Let’s face it, growing doesn’t exactly feel comfortable.
Growing a business is hard work as well. There is a lot that goes into it and occasionally it requires sacrifice of your personal time. Growing a business also includes making mistakes: creating processes and procedures, dealing with people’s problems and turnover; updating systems and platforms; growing a team and making sure everyone is “staying within the guard rails”. The list goes on and on. And when you think you are done, it’s time to refresh and update the whole thing again!! Sounds tiring? It can be exhausting at times, but it’s also very exciting.
Just like personal growth, Growing a Business requires willingness and effort, consistency and dedication. It doesn’t come naturally or happen miraculously. You must be willing to put in the work to see the results.
There is a very smart saying I heard from a friend once: “those who have what others don’t, are willing to do things that others won’t”.
Does that mean that you have to continue to work so hard, work late hours and sacrifice your personal life forever? I used to think that was the formula to success and my life used to reflect this belief. BUT I worked a lot on myself these past years and spent valuable time reflecting about how I want to live my life in the years to come. You see, life is short. With a blink of an eye I am now 41 years old. With another blink, I will be 82.
Despite the fact that I used to think that hard work is the only path to success, now I know this isn’t true. I mean yes and no! Yes , someone needs to work hard, and when you are starting your business, of course , it most likely needs to be you who should lead it, unless you have large chunks of money to invest in hiring high quality people from the beginning and just dedicate yourself to the strategic part. It wasn’t my case.
I started very “cheap” and did most of the things by myself. I learned pretty quickly that I absolutely didn’t want to live my life doing it all myself. I wanted to do “bigger things with my time”, and for that, I needed to delegate. And that’s exactly the concept of the business I created and love, Stafi. It’s the concept that you can have anything you want in life, but in order to do so, you need to delegate to others. And Stafi provides the “others” that you can delegate to for an affordable cost.
Fast forward eight years, I now envision living my life in a very different way in the years to come. I envision replacing myself every day with a team of people that can work as well as I do or better. I am not only talking about the administrative work here. I am talking about the “head of sales” job, the “head of marketing” job and the “C-level job”.
Delegating is the key word. I want to sit on the “board” as we say at large companies, and be an advisor instead of doing day to day work. That’s my vision.
A year ago, this thought didn’t cross my mind. I didn’t think this was possible nor I didn’t even allow myself to want something like this. I thought the most “important” things should be done by the CEO.
And I still think so, but now, the most important thing is to live my life the way I want, at all times. And that changes as we evolve.
So, my friends, in order to get to where you want in life, either physically or mentally, try to be that person you want to be one day, you’ll have to work for it. I will always encourage you 100% to do so because if you don’t, no one else will do it for you. I believe we have a responsibility to love ourselves just as you would have the responsibility to raise a child if you had one.
And with that thought, I leave you tonight. Thank you for reading and I will see you in two weeks.
R.G.
