| With Business Freedom, it becomes your choice | | | | Blind passion is dumb. Blind commitment is dumb. |
| whether you work in your business or not, and | | | | Blind persistence is dumb. And having the |
| how much you work in it. It is also your choice | | | | courage to continue to do dumb things – is |
| what you do with your business – whether | | | | just dumb. |
| you keep it, close it, expand it, reduce it or sell it. | | | | Staying on the business owner's treadmill with no |
| In simple terms, in order for you to have more | | | | business freedom is just dumb too. |
| business freedom, your business needs to be | | | | But, Business Blindness is voluntary. It's our |
| - Profitable | | | | choice. Or generally, more correctly, it's when |
| - Predictable | | | | we abandon our right and responsibility to make |
| - Expandable | | | | uncomfortable choices. Sticking our head in the |
| - Able to operated without you | | | | sand of our own business also leads to |
| It may or may not surprise you to learn that | | | | blindness… |
| many – if not most – businesses do not | | | | We don't have to be blind in our own business, |
| meet ALL of these criteria. | | | | but we do need to remember to open our |
| Why not? | | | | eyes. And we do need to make better choices |
| Well, it's not necessarily because they are bad | | | | – and take responsibility for our choices. |
| businesses. And it's not usually because the | | | | It's time to open our eyes and re-look at our own |
| owners of the businesses are bad business | | | | business. We need to take more time out of |
| people. | | | | working IN the business and start working more |
| From my experience, it is because the businesses | | | | cleverly ON the business. |
| have not been developed or structured to meet | | | | Most business owners don't make enough time to |
| these criteria. But sometimes "Business | | | | work ON their business. Generally, it's not because |
| Blindness" gets in the way. | | | | they don't want to, but because they get so |
| Starting, owning and running a business takes | | | | caught up in the "doing" of their business that |
| passion and commitment and persistence. And | | | | they have no time or energy left to figure out |
| courage. Guts. | | | | what needs to be done to extract themselves |
| Often in the middle of the passion, the | | | | from their own business. |
| commitment and the persistence, we business | | | | But that is just continuing the Business Blindness |
| owners become blind to what is actually happening | | | | – and continuing life on the treadmill! |
| in the business. We become blind to what we | | | | One definition of insanity is "Doing the same thing |
| need to do to improve, change or re-structure | | | | over and over again and expecting a different |
| the business to give us what we want. It's | | | | result". To get Business Freedom, you don't |
| Business Blindness! | | | | want to be doing the same things over and over |
| The business needs to give us more of what we | | | | again – if they are not working for you. You |
| want – and less of what we don't want. But | | | | will need to be doing things differently. And you'll |
| in the heat of business battles, when the very | | | | probably need to be doing different things. |
| survival of the business can be on the line, we | | | | It's important to realize you can change. Things |
| sometimes forget what we really wanted when | | | | can change. You can change the things you do. |
| we started the business. We get caught up in | | | | Some Big Questions for you… |
| "the business" – and often keep going doing | | | | 1. Do you want your Business Freedom? |
| stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense – in | | | | 2. What type of Business Freedom do you want? |
| the name of persistence, commitment and | | | | 3. To get that type of Business Freedom, what |
| passion. That takes courage – but it's just | | | | needs to change? and then… |
| dumb. | | | | 4. How do you do it? |
| Business Blindness is Dumb. | | | | |