Finding Balance When Business is Booming or Bombing

Finding Balance When Business is Booming or Bombing

Any entrepreneur can understand the crazy amount of stress, pressure and mental energy a growing business can put on us. I hear it’s comparable to having triplets. This last while has been pretty full on for me and I thought by sharing how I’ve come to find balance and joy through the inevitable growth, struggles and hardships of being an entrepreneur, I may be able to inspire some other entrepreneurs, creators or people who are overwhelmed by the demands of life to rediscover their balance.Risks and challenges of business life

At the moment my business is requiring more of my energy than ever before and all of the projects I’ve always wanted to do are finally happening here and now (all at once). Just yesterday, one of my new videos had 66,000 views in 24-hours! This has been awesome and it’s also forced me to get extremely organized and detail oriented. The days of flying by the seat of my pants are long gone.

I have no choice but to get present, grounded and clear before I start my work days, otherwise an entire day can pass and nothing that moves me forward gets done. I’m at a very exciting time in my life. Ten years ago I dropped out of college with the intention to have a lifestyle and business that could support me to play competitive golf. Well, this intention is no longer a dream that’s outside of me. It is my life. I am having the time of my life training for the upcoming tournament season. I literally feel like a kid everyday as I train, work my dream business, play golf and adventure with my wife! It’s so awesome.

I’m so fucking thrilled and grateful that all the hard work, persistence and dedication is paying off. It’s funny though because I always thought that living my dreams meant everything would be easy, but it’s actually the opposite. I’m working harder than ever before (especially on my inner stuff, patterns and personal growth).

I was reflecting earlier today while walking the golf course that so many times over the years I wanted to give up because I felt too overwhelmed … but I didn’t. So many days I wanted to stay in bed, but I didn’t – I got up and I got to work on my next steps. If I hadn’t stayed focused, I wouldn’t be where I am right now and if I would’ve let my fears, insecurities or debts take me down I would not be living the life I am. It has taken countless choices, risks and moments of being decisive to get to where I am right now.

While thinking this I flashed back to so many moments where I said no to dangling carrots of temptation and I stayed committed to my own vision rather than veering off to somebody else’s.

eCourse Creation Power Point images (SoC).012Being clear on MY vision and MY big why (playing professional golf, being free and having fun working awesome projects with my favorite people) has been a savior for me and I promise you this, I never would have been as clear as I am if it wasn’t for meditation. This simple practice of reconnecting to my breath and turning within is what has gotten me through so many of the obstacles I’ve had to overcome and insecurities I’ve had to find peace with.

I have had several points over the last ten years where I had to step away from everything I was doing and meditate on a clear path to take. Sometimes this would take months before I’d get my answer and I’d be scrambling to pay the bills doing other stuff. But in those challenging times, I stayed true to my heart, true to my vision and I wouldn’t let fear sway me.

Lets be honest, we live in a world of distraction and if we’re not rooted in ourselves and our power, it’s easy to be swayed off course. We are constantly bombarded by advertising, Facebook and texting is more addictive than crack and everybody in the world thinks they know what’s best for us.

We must weave our way through the chaos everyday and unfortunately, many of us are never taught to actually listen to our own inner voice or attune to the subtle messages from our body and life that are constantly offering us feedback on the choices we make. I know I wasn’t taught this growing up! Most people don’t even realize there is a voice within them to listen to, other than the nagging voice of self criticism and desire – which are deceptive false voices.

Meditation goes against everything our “doing culture” is taught. It is totally counter intuitive and to the untrained mind it appears to be a pointless waste of time. But I have discovered time and time again and so have the thousands of people I’ve taught over the years, that this practice IS what makes us truly productive.

Meditation took a shit ton of discipline for me to make a habit at first, but God it was worth it! I’d fall asleep, get bored or my body would become excruciatingly uncomfortable.

But I learned to soften into these discomforts. I learned to open myself to becoming more aware. I learned that my pain was actually my body’s way of communicating to me and so I breathed a little deeper and listened a little closer. This practice of learning to listen deeply has helped me so much with my decision making processes.

My presence practice is now such a blissful state that I take into everything I do from playing golf, to making love, to writing this article, making musical comedy videos or building my business launch strategies.

One of the things I teach my clients is that we must have some form of self centering practice incorporated into our daily lives (everyday). Otherwise we are taking action from reaction and we allow our stress to bleed over into our creative projects, life, relationships and dreams. This pollutes the purity of our intentions.

Now more than ever we must be rooted in ourselves, clear on who we are and completely committed to what we want. If we waffle back and forth and never get off our fence of comfort then we are hopeless and our dreams are a lost cause.

We must leap eventually and when we do we must learn to trust ourselves. The only way to trust ourselves is to know ourselves and from my experience, meditation has been the key ingredient that has helped me get to know who I really am and what I really want.

If meditation is something you’ve never really gotten into, I highly recommend you do a productivity experiment. Take 15-20 minutes every morning before starting work to do a breath and presence practice. Set a timer if you need to. Do this for 21 days and watch how your energy, creativity, productivity and levels of happiness increase to a whole other level. There’s nothing to lose.

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