We’ve started a new tradition on our cruise called BLunch, which stands for Business Lunch. One member of our gang presents some background on their business, followed by the biggest challenge they’re facing, and then receives feedback from everyone else. We all take it seriously, and the group is comprised mostly of entrepreneurs, so the advice has been excellent so far.
Today the guest of honor at the BLunch had an interesting problem. She wanted to expand to make more money on her business, but her avenues for expansion were limited. Each of the most obvious and promising options were vetoed for one reason or another.
As we dug deeper, it turned out she was burnt out by her business. Aspects of it sapped her energy and reduced her motivation on the rest of it. These parts of her business made no money, but she felt obligated to fulfill them anyway. No one else in the group thought that they were worth the effort.
One thing I noticed, that I’ve also seen in myself, was that she was willing to accept compromise in her life, but only a finite amount. It struck me that she was “spending” that compromise inefficiently. She could completely cut out the compromise that was really burning her out, and instead compromise a little by working an a venture that her customers would love but wouldn’t be particularly inspiring to her. Same amount of compromise in her life, but less burnout and more money.
This reminded me that there are a lot of various resources that we each have in limited quantity. There’s time, discipline, attention, focus, friendship, compromise, money, and many others. We micromanage our time and money, but often don’t even think of the others as limited.
Maybe not in nature, but in self development there’s a lot of gold under unturned rocks. We very often fight for scraps on the most visible things, but leave a lot on the table in unexamined corners of our lives. Optimizing things like compromise, friendship, and attention may very well provide us with more leverage than the things we’ve already picked over a million times.
After all, one of our finite resources is focus. May as well direct it where it will be most effective.
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Picture is graffiti in Petropavlovsk with a giant Lenin statue in the background. I’m not actually on the cruise anymore– just wrote this when I was.
Finally back in the US after almost five weeks gone. Really sad to leave the awesome group of people I was traveling with, but very excited to buckle down and work.
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