Overcoming Overwhelm

I had an interesting conversation with a friend last night about our businesses and how difficult it is to replicate yourself. He told a story of a client who is an accountant who can never get her own work done because she spends her day answering questions and finding info for her staff. In essence, she’s doing the work of her staff, but no one is doing her work as company owner.

One way to overcome that is to simply tell your staff, "No, you need to figure that out." Otherwise, they’ll never learn to become self-sufficient. I’ve been sucked up in this bog before with staff members, and once you’re in, it can be difficult to get out of it. And, of course, your staff members love it, because you’re not requiring any heavy-duty thinking or work from them.

As business owners, it’s really tough to make your staff (real or virtual) to act in an independent fashion and have the same drive and desire to discover the answers as you do. My former virtual assistant brought an extraordinary number of technical skills to the table, as well as the gift of bigger-picture-thinking along with the ability to brainstorm and generate ideas for my business. She was a true collaborative partner for me. Unfortunately, we had to stop working together because of a conflict of interest issue brought forth by a third party. The loss has been hard on me and my business–I feel I’ve lost my right-hand person.

Since I’ve been working alot of hours of late, this loss has been magnified for me. I’m back to playing the game of telling myself that I can’t afford to hire someone again, as revenues are down, but then wondering if my doing all the administrative stuff is what’s causing my revenues to stay lower. Definitely a chicken or egg question that we all face, even those of us who should know better..LOL

I know that they only way to break through this barrier is to go for it–just not sure I believe myself quite yet…….the coach could use some coaching here..:)