Stillness and uncertainty is a part of the life cycle of an entrepreneur. Moments of glory and purposefulness are too. We ride through the moments of glory and quickly become ill prepared for those moment of stillness and uncertainty. But we need to find comfort in them being part of the entrepreneurial development process too.
I am finding myself in this exact spot right now. I have completed a large cycle: written a book, found a great agent, and successfully have begun speaking about how to create value from art. I have done a good job. Reached goals I never thought I could reach. Built the foundation of something exciting and, at the same time, still really young and very new.
I am finding myself now staring at the uncertainties of Stage II.
A new stage of development means a whole new cycle of beginnings. A new period of growth, change and uncertainty all over again. Part of me is thrilled and part of me wants to pack up my bags with my accomplishments to date, still fresh and intact, and put them on my trophy shelf and let them collect dust instead of venture again into the unknown. Moving forward is a risk.
Or is it more about getting comfortable with development cycles?
I think the life of a venture is all about development cycles that, no matter what stage you are at, really look all the same.
Each begins with a sense of uncertainty, adventure, fear, desire and hope. I began writing my book and this blog in exactly this same place. I began speaking the same way. All that I have accomplished has come from a sense of adventure, fear, and desire but also with little expectation of what it would bring.
But as you grow your ideas and they begin to bloom, the shear fact your ideas have taken a visible shape to others, who then ask you questions about it, will cause you to want to include that word EXPECTATION into your vocabulary.
Expectations are dreadful because they create an assumption about what you can or cannot do and how you are suppose to do it and when. How dreadful to limit your potential by allowing expectations to let you down and keep your best most purposeful self waiting.
You see, I expected my book to be sold to a publisher by now. Everyone keeps asking me WHEN will my book be published. I began my adventure writing my book and blogging and THEN I wrote my business plan for the next big steps on my journey. Well, my plan says I am suppose to have a publisher now to move forward with my plan.
So now what? Should I allow my expectations to let me down?
How easy it is, with a few moments of success- a completed book, landing an agent, becoming increasingly accomplished speaking- ( fill in your own glory moments here…) to forgot that a business plan must evolve as you create it in real time. Entrepreneurial growth does not have room for expectations because you need that free space to add the needed head, foot or limb, that your EXPECTATIONS would never allow you to incorporate into the growth of your venture.
Every entrepreneur needs those moments of glory but sometimes they make us forget how creativity grows into something beautiful and strong. After all every rose begins in the mud and every cycle of growth and evolution in a venture must too.
