
Reflections on our first birthday — Purposeful
A mentor of mine told me to celebrate when your startup reaches the one year mark, because you’ve already been more successful than 90% of all startups. This petrified me as we had only been alive for about 4 months at that stage!
Well… this week we turned one. It’s been an amazing year of growth, challenge, insecurity, stress, elation and promise. I learned a lot about attitude, mindset, work ethic and what it takes to succeed.
The next year will be about putting many of these learnings into practice. I list below some of the biggest reflections that have helped me and will drive me in year two.
Relationships are everything
The most important thing you can do as a business owner is to form good, trusting and productive relationships. If you do one thing well in year one- make it this. All else can flow once you get this right.
Spend time with people you admire and aspire to be like in some way. If you are unsure who to devote time to, consider that you are the productive of the five people that you spend the most time with.
What you don’t do is key
Starting out you feel a lot of pressure to make your presence known. Speak at all events, write all the blogs, meet everyone for coffee. Some of these are important but the best way to manage these opportunities is to filter all of against what aligns to your organisational purpose.
Saying no to something, means saying yes to something that is more closely aligned with your purpose. Saying yes to everything leaves you unable to commit to fulfilling your purpose and business goals.
Trust your gut over all else
Actively seek out and listen to everyone’s opinion (in your trusted circles and people you respect outside). But then think deeply about this advice and weigh it against your gut instinct and feel.
You are ultimately responsible and accountable for your decisions and you need to trust yourself if you want to succeed. Pay attention to your intuition and practice trusting it- it is usually signalling a risk, some discomfort or something you should avoid trusting.
If you fear it, you should do it
When I was younger I thought of fear as something you should avoid because it’s dangerous. This is our natural evolutionary response to uncomfortable or new situations.
But business is not the pre-historic savannah; and we know that overcoming fear by taking risks is the only way to ensure productive growth
So if you don’t blog, start blogging. If you don’t give talks, start giving talks. If you don’t podcast, start podcasting. If you are scared of rejection, challenge yourself to contact 100 potential clients each month.
Ask a sample of those who reject your business, why they have done so; and what would it take for you to win their business.
Mike is Founding Director of Purposeful, an ethical consultancy helping organisations to measure and report on social impact. He is also Creator and Host of the Humans of Purpose podcast and a Director of SIMNA.
Sign up for The Purpose here and for the Humans of Purpose podcast here.