Finding the Joy in Hard Work

by Trish

According to some viewpoints, I’ve lived a romantic life—or at least some parts were romantic. I traveled a lot growing up in an Army family, graduating high school in Tuscany, Italy. I spent over twenty years as a cruising/liveaboard sailor. A few of those years were spent sailing to and living in the tropics of Latin America.

 I’ve owned my own business twice, once in the 1980s and now, and I spent ten years in corporate life later in my career, during which I rose meteorically and quadrupled my salary.

Now I live in a beautiful home in the Texas Hill Country north of Austin, surrounded by nature, with three dogs, two parrots, and two horses. Many of the things I’ve done or the ways I’ve lived figure as someone else’s dream. And rightly so.

Wanting to be a cruising sailor, a homeowner, a horse owner, or a solopreneur is a great dream. There are joys attached to each one of those goals. And there is work. I’ve heard other sailors, homeowners, horse owners, and business owners observe how much more work the lifestyle takes than they expected.

When we are dreaming the dream, we see sunset-drenched anchorages, well-kept rooms and gardens, ourselves in the saddle on a great ride, or busy workdays generating big revenues. We don’t think about what it takes to get to those visions. Every dream we go for takes work. There is no easy way to make our visions real. The boat must be tended, the house must be kept repaired, maintained, and paid for, the horse must be brushed, fed, and cleaned up after, and it takes time and energy to get established in business.

But if the dream stays alive, that hard work is worth it. It never becomes drudgery. We don’t feel trapped or bone weary. We end each day tired but inspired, and we willingly take on the next day’s to do list, and the one for the days following. While the dream is alive, the hard work is essentially joyful. It’s a necessary part of the dream we are living.

The day the hard work stops being joyful, stop and think. Why is the joy gone? Is your dream the same or has it changed? This happened to me with the cruising life. I had dreamed of owning my own sailboat and cruising the world’s seas, and I did quite a bit of that. But eventually all I could see was the hard work and very little of the joy. And the day I realized that was the day I created a new dream…the one I’m now living.

How about you? Is your hard work joyful or a drudge? And if the latter, why is that? Do you need to recalibrate your dream machine?

When checking out a “guru,” ask for the back story…

by Trish

The small/solo business arena is getting more and more crammed with experts wanting to teach you something for a fee (yes, I am one of them, and I gotta tell ya, it’s getting pretty claustrophobic with all the bodies in here).

Many of my fellow experts are great sales people. They know how to tantalize, tempt, and enthuse prospects enough to sign on the dotted line. I envy them their ability sometimes. A silver tongue makes things so much easier when you’re promoting your business.

Problem is, in many cases there’s a slight fork in those silver tongues. Many, maybe even most, of the experts touting their services, products, and programs make things sound pretty easy. And they tell their own stories in stirring fashion; the old “I was a 95-pound weakling, and now I am a buff he-man” story, just with different circumstances. This is smart marketing, because we are all suckers for a good yarn where the protagonist makes the change that makes his or her dream come true. I am definitely a fan of the then-now story as a credential builder.

But….

Too many times, there’s stuff left out of the story. We aren’t told, for example, that the rags to riches experience was ten years in the making. Or that the expert tried and failed at three other business ventures before hitting pay dirt.

There is one mega-expert who has built quite a reputation and a following. One part of his “then” story tells of living in his car on the streets of one of America’s cities for a time. “A time.” I’m such a cynic, I figure, sure, he lived in his car…for a couple of days, week at the most. Maybe while his house was being fumigated. Or so he could use it as part of his story without lying. OK, maybe I’m doing the guy an injustice, but I have a very hard time believing that he would ever have been in such straits…he’s too astute a marketer and business person to have been literally homeless.

There is another well known internet marketing expert who has sold loads of programs and made bajillions. One reason he is highly admired is that he did it all at a very young age—early twenties. The part of his back story that doesn’t get out much is that he grew up in a family of very successful entrepreneurs. He was trained from the cradle. He probably knew stuff at the age of seven that most of us are just learning now. Given that kind of environment, it would be surprising if he didn’t create success for himself in his early adulthood.

So here’s the thing. Don’t take any of our success stories—mine included—at face value. To get a handle on what it may really take to get your business running the way you want, and to set realistic expectations for yourself, dig into our back stories. Ask the questions that no one else asks. Buying the service, product, or program may still make sense for you, but now you can use them with eyes wide open. And I bet you reach your goals that much faster.