I shared five reasons why experienced entrepreneurs get stuck in a previous blog posting. Welcome to part two, where I share five additional reasons experienced entrepreneurs get stuck.
Underinvesting in their personal development and learning
When I first fell in love with performance education I loved the maxim, Know thyself—so much so, I made it the bedrock of my coaching. Then I came across two alternate interpretations.
- Early Greek interpretations of the phrase actually meant know thy measure.
- Thomas Hobbes translated the Latin version of the term to mean read thyself.
When we coach our clients, we help them think and act on these three fundamental components of self-mastery.
Experienced entrepreneurs have been trained so much they assume they know what they need to know. They confuse familiarity with mastery. They’re familiar with many concepts they haven’t mastered. They haven’t, for example, mastered the art of knowing and reading themselves. Coaching and education help them learn their measure, something we have found fundamental to achieving peak performance.
Not fully understanding where they make their money
One of the most profound questions we can ask in our coaching is, where do you make your money? I can’t tell you the number of times people say they’re not sure. Some of the most experienced entrepreneurs we work with must analyze where they’re making money. Knowing where and how you make money is fundamental to a rewarding entrepreneurial journey.
Not redefining their business as things change
Are you in a rut or in a groove? It can be hard to tell the difference. If you’ve been doing business for some time, there’s a chance your groove will one day become a rut. The challenge is having the courage to make the change before it’s too late. Most businesses need to be redefined every three to seven years. All too often, experienced entrepreneurs wait too long to redefine their business and find themselves trying to find their way out of a rut that was once a groove.
Thinking they have to know it all
We all have ways in which we protect ourselves. One challenge is experienced entrepreneurs sometimes mistakenly believe they need to have all the answers. When you’ve been in business a long time, you see and know a lot. Yet, you cannot and will never know it all. The day you think you know it all is the day you begin to lose. But, if you’re not learning, you’re not growing. We know from the research that we learn best when we’re appropriately challenged. The zone of performance lies somewhere between comfortable and difficult. We don’t want to work too far out of our comfort zone, yet the goal is to be challenged. We should feel some uncertainty whenever we’re seeking peak performance.
Not going narrow enough
One of our mantras at The Covenant Group is ‘The narrower the focus, the bigger the opportunity.’ Without fail, we find that most experienced entrepreneurs haven’t narrowed their focus in one of two ways:
- Not narrowing the people they serve.
- Not narrowing the things they do.
When you narrow your focus, you begin your journey to redefining your performance.
If you want to get serious about focusing on strategically building and growing your business, sign up for our upcoming Business Builder Playbook program cohort. When you join, you get access to a peer-to-peer coaching program that gives you a roadmap to grow your business and achieve and sustain peak performance.
