New Year, New Rules: Make the Choice for Love
Last year December I made a very big decision; I resigned from the executive management team of the venture capital fund I was working with and I removed myself from the management team of a sales company I had recently started.
Why did I make these decisions?
I wanted to focus my energy on a lost dream, a dream that was slowly dying as I begun to live the dreams of others. I’ve long known I hated accounting and finance but there I was assisting with the management of a VC fund. I’ve long known I hated sales but there I was starting a sales company. In working on these two ventures I had little time left for the one thing I really loved and was most passionate about – marketing. It was beginning to take a toll on my happiness. I returned to Barbados to start and build an amazing marketing firm but here I was doing everything but. I decided it was time to give my marketing company a fair shot.
To help you understand how much I had lost focus, my marketing company had no business plan and therefore no marketing plan. I was not actively seeking clients and even when some potential clients approached me, I turned them down because I had no time or additional resources to dedicate to their projects. I had become an oddity of sorts; a business with one major client. I was like an employee! Could I really call myself an entrepreneur when I was completely dependent on one client and in no way seeking to expand my business? Furthermore, I started my sales company to offer a centralized sales resource to this client.
Slowly I was becoming more immersed in someone else’s dream and losing my own. The truth really hit home one day when someone asked, “So how did you go about marketing your company?” I didn’t have a response because I hadn’t done anything.
I’m not fond of making New Year’s resolutions; I believe you don’t need a new year to make a big change; you just change. But I decided that 2011 was going to be a different year, it was going to be the year I focused on doing the things I was most passionate about. Since making that declaration last year, I worked on my business plan and am now actively marketing my company. I’m beginning to see the returns as well and I am a lot happier. I am also in a better position to provide a much better marketing service to the venture capital fund.
When you are not doing the things you love, it can sap a lot of your energy and slowly change your outlook on life. I hope this year you are doing work you love.
