The Fear Of Growth

(Image courtesy ft.com)

Last week, I stumbled upon this article by Ravi Mattu from ft.com.

It touches one of the fears entrepreneurs experience, when starting out:

What if the business grows (and I kind of want that) too fast?

Ravi Mattu words it like this:

"Setting up a company is hard. You need to come up with a business plan, find investment, sort out legal and regulatory issues and then find enough customers or clients to pay the bills. And that is just the start.

But what happens when a company grows? It requires more structure and processes, making it harder to remain nimble and innovative. This is especially the case in the internet age, when companies can scale up so quickly that it is hard to manage the process."

Experts suggest keeping a business as small as possible as long as it goes. Ravi Mattu shares their insights as well as a couple of case studies, how successful large companies manage their growth to stay innovative and flexible. Continue reading here.

Now, you have some knowledge about how to handle the potential growth of your business. And I hope this makes your fear around it less intense.

If it is still substantial and holding you back from even creating your new business, please, don't hesitate to schedule a free call with me here to deal with it.

Big Decision

This is not the first time, that I thought about consciously quitting all things visual arts and crafts at least for a while.

Actually, during the last couple of years, I haven't done much in that direction. And even when I did it, mostly, felt like pushing a huge stone up a hill just to see it roll back again. There was no joy, no energy, no flow in it.

The only motivation was the thought, that I "should" do it because I can due to my talents and skills. The thing is, I have a s***load of them. Except for one: making money with it.

After I got that wonderful transcription job I was over the moon. There is no deadline and the amount is huge, and I'm eager to do it and to learn from it on the way. But, somehow, I could never find more time nor energy to do it for much more than one hour a day.

Although I wasn't doing any arts or crafts either. That made me pretty frustrated. I even asked GP Walsh, if he had an explanation, what this could be about.

He wrote in the answer:
"No explanation, Just let it unfold. Often times there are things that interfere with our growth. Resistance takes many many forms. Don't be concerned. Just allow it to be there and stay aware."

And so I did, but the overall feeling was not pleasant at all. And it all circled around that thought, that I should use all my talents to support my family, although arts, crafts, or even any of my businesses have never been capable of doing that on a serious scale and for longer time. Believe it or not, it has always been only at the very beginning of a new thing I started, when it actually worked.

So, today, I deleted my art page and my crafts page on Facebook, my accounts at spoonflower.com, society6.com and redbubble.com, left most art/crafts related groups there and decided to stop watching/reading/listening to any materials about arts, crafts and business building.

All webinar notes on those themes will go to a recycle bin as well. I'm still leaving my destash shop on Etsy open until the last listings expire as well as my jewelry and accessories in a shop in the town. 

I have still to decide what I do with the bead weaving classes I just started to teach. Might still continue doing that for a while. But all the arts/crafts tools and supplies I don't need for that will be put away.

Getting rid of them permanently isn't an option right now, because my son is in art school and my daughter is learning to become a dressing style consultant, so they might need them at some point. Besides, I never said I would never go back to visual art/crafts, right?

I'm still reluctant of giving up photography and the last art related group on Facebook for the time being as well. But feeling deep in my gut that I must.

For now, I'm just following my curiosity, as Elizabeth Gilbert suggested.

And feeling light like a feather again. :)

Update: Left the photography and the last group as well. :)