Recently I had some key experiences (once again😅):
- self-reflective meeting with performance coach
- arrived at my physical limits
Below, I share my lessons learned & the resulting consequences with you.
Self-Reflective Meeting With Performance Coach
Recently a performance coach approached me on Instagram & offered me a free zoom meeting to talk about the current situation of my business. So that we can figure out my current challenges.
I agreed because I was already in a state of mind where I was open for reflection, because I knew that I need to re-prioritize my current projects. I thought that this 30 minute call will probably not hurt me and I’ll certainly learn something from it. And I did…
Call: Super Weird
When we started the Zoom call, the guy started without any introduction (about himself or his background). Essentially he just asked questions and expected that I open up about my challenges without even knowing the purpose of the call and without knowing anything about him.
During the call I quickly got an awful perception of him, because…
- from my point of view he tries to coach people who are actually more successful than him (which probably doesn’t apply to me in particular).
- he behaved as if he had it down pat
He made points like “I’ve been at the same point as you some time ago. When I was at this point I needed to take some time for myself to set clear goals.” Then he quickly suggested things like “You should get testimonials” to convince more prospects… which was obviously something he was currently trying to do (since in his initial message he offered a free coaching session just in exchange for an honest feedback at the end). And it’s not that I don’t know things like getting testimonials to improve my reputation etc.
Most of the time I was just thinking things like: “Who are you, please?🤨 What qualifies you to behave as if you have it down pat (more than I do)?” So if this guy was successful he wouldn’t approach me on Instagram and offer free sessions.
Lessons Learned
Why do I tell you this? The point is not that I want to expose this guy.
I think one major insight for me after this conversation was that I basically regarded myself as him. So I suddenly realized that…
- I don’t want to be like him (an unsuccessful sucker giving business tips to other suckers)
- I have a super bad self-image (which I eventually project onto others – not only in this case)
Think About Who’s Giving You Advice!
The point is that if the coach guy isn’t a successful business owner, I fundamentally don’t want to have business tips from him.
How could he be able to help me build my own business if he has absolutely no clue about anything?
This is one of the first and most important lessons I’ve learned many years ago when I started to learn about businesses. And funnily enough this is literally one crucial advice which Dashiell Bark-Huss shared in the very 1st NeverEmployed episode (the headline is literally Dash’s advice)
That’s why I started the NeverEmployed Chat in the first place: Because I want to learn from people who really build successful businesses. I want to learn from people who really have it down pat. And I simply want to surround myself with people who don’t just have an entrepreneurial mindset but who’ve even done something with it already.
So that I can learn from their insights (which is also kind of misleading, because the most important learnings happen during hands-on doing and not while you watch other people) and share these conversations with other people who’d like to learn from successful entrepreneurs. And eventually I want to support these entrepreneurs by increasing their outreach.
So the very best advice I could give you, if you want to build a successful business is to unsubscribe from this newsletter (& every other one) and instead of watching others do build your own business (if that’s what you want to do), instead of just watching other people doing it.
This is not startup porn! This is startup life.
— Pieter Levels
Business Coaching
Eventually I started to see the similarities between the performance coach guy and me.
And I realized that…
- I don’t want to appear like someone who wants to be a business guru…
- I don’t want to appear like someone who wants to teach business in the first place…
- I don’t want to try to be a role model for anyone (at all cost)…
… before having build successful businesses myself.
I believe that valuable business coaching is something that can only come from people who actually built, ran and maybe even exited successful businesses. At least that’s the kind of coach/mentor I want to have. And that’s the kind of coach/mentor I want to be (eventually at some point in the future).
Being in exchange with people who are more or less at the same level of building businesses is okay and probably makes sense. But that’s rather a master mind or a loose connection of like-minded entrepreneurs and not one douchebag trying to teach another sucker how to become successful.
I’m happy to help people, who are few steps behind me, with business tips. But to be honest, I think that’s only a very small fraction so far.
Don’t Want To Waste My Time
I don’t want to waste my time with another sucker (just like me) who, for some reason, believes that he could help me to become more effective.
And I don’t want to spend a lot of time writing newsletters about business tips without having it down pat. I feel like some insights into my current activities and insights are okay. But in the future I want to restrain the writing.
If people happen to learn from my insights coincidentally – great! But I don’t want to spend my time trying to build the reputation of a successful business guy who teaches others about business, when I am actually not that guy.
Instead I rather want to actually build a successful business or help people greatly in some way in the first place. If someone happens to learn from it or reach out to me, because that person feels that he/she could learn from me personally, I’ll be open for that.🤗
For now I am happy that I reached this state of self-awareness. And I am grateful for the coach guy and the call which helped me to this insight again.
The NeverEmployed Chat isn’t meant to be a business in itself. I rather see it as a recreational activity which is supposed to take as little time as possible, while still resulting in as much value as possible for the involved parties (guests, viewers, me). But my workflow still needs quite some improvement until I achieve that point of efficiency.
Arrived At My Physical Limits
Since ~2 years I had pain in my wrists, hands, shoulder & arm – sometimes more, sometimes less This isn’t a surprise, since I spend 8-15 hours per day at the computer.
Fortunately I do exercise every single day in the morning. But obviously that’s not enough. Last week the described pain reached a new all-time high and simply stayed on – even in my fingers.
So the consequence is basically that I question my further programming & online-business-building journey. I could certainly exercise a lot more & spend way less time at the computer. But for now I somehow see this as a reminder that there are also other ways.
I’d actually love to write down more thoughts, since I love writing. Although I feel like writing helps me a lot in strengthening my insights and lessons learned, I really try to avoid every unnecessary sitting and typing at the computer for now.
Eventually that’s another reason for me to cut back on newsletter issues and maybe just send updates about the new NeverEmployed Chat episodes instead.
Refocus
I’ll consult a pain therapist once the holidays are over. And I’ll spend some time binge-reading books, exploring topics, meditating, exercising and figuring out what I actually want to do with my life.
Even though this text may draw the image of a super frustrated state of mind, that’s actually not the case. Some time ago I would probably have seen this as a huge setback.
But currently I see it as the enforced break which hopefully helps me to refocus, study and eventually continue with more confidence and endurance.
In the past I’ve found myself working on quite stupid and pointless projects with very little value over and over again. In the future I’ll certainly focus more on helping people with everything I do. But the details remain to be elaborated…