{"id":1972,"date":"2010-12-09T09:33:21","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T14:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thegrowthcoach.com\/allentown-somerville\/the-business-owner-time-warp"},"modified":"2010-12-09T09:33:21","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T14:33:21","slug":"the-business-owner-time-warp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thegrowthcoach.com\/allentown-somerville\/the-business-owner-time-warp","title":{"rendered":"The Business Owner Time Warp"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a business owner, are you always doing the entrepreneurial time warp? <\/strong> You know, repeatedly jumping back and forth between your past and future, seldom operating in the present.<\/strong> Probably so.\u00a0 As a CPA and professional business coach<\/a> for over 25 years, I have witnessed up close how small business owners are fascinated with time travel, frequently visiting their PAST and their FUTURE, but neglecting their PRESENT. Are you a tortured time traveler as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a personal growth coach<\/a> in the early 90’s, it was initially frustrating and challenging for me to get entrepreneurs to focus on the HERE AND NOW.<\/strong> In a blink, owners would jump into their personal time-travel machines and before I knew it, they were off traveling to the past.\u00a0 They would spend considerable time wallowing in their regrets, both business and personal, revisiting their old mistakes and failures, and\/or wishing for the good old days.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Or, when I wasn’t looking, they would move the dial in their time-travel machine and leap into the future.\u00a0 There, they would spend considerable time and energy worrying about and fearing the future … fretting over things well beyond their control.<\/strong> None of this time travel was productive and it wasted precious time and energy.\u00a0 As a business coach, I’m not certain why owners did the time warp but I was determined to help them stop and learn to focus on TODAY.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because of my clients’ sabotaging pattern of “past regrets” and “future worries”, I worked hard on perfecting a business coaching and accountability process<\/a> that helped business owners learn from their past, properly plan for their future, but spend the vast majority of their time, energy and focus on the HERE AND NOW<\/strong><\/em>. The Growth Coach<\/a> strategic-focusing process was designed to help small business clients glance into the future but to proactively make decisions, create plans, and take actions TODAY.\u00a0 After all, when you are too busy time traveling, nothing gets accomplished in the here and now.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Most entrepreneurs, when constructively challenged, accept the fact that they should not dwell on the past. <\/strong> They know they should learn lessons from their past, stop beating themselves up, and move on.\u00a0 Where many entrepreneurs struggle is letting go of the future.\u00a0 They waste time worrying about tomorrow and matters beyond their control.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, please don’t get this executive coach<\/a> wrong.\u00a0 I’m not saying don’t look into the future and don’t do proper planning.\u00a0 Far from that.<\/strong> As an owner or executive, you need to mentally jump forward on occasion in order to create a vision of where you want to go<\/strong>, both professionally and personally.\u00a0 You need to paint your ideal future.\u00a0 Once you have such a clear vision, you must reverse engineer a path back to the present so you can create a plan to help you actually reach that desired future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, while you should periodically take a glimpse into the future, you cannot stay there.\u00a0 You cannot impact the future by staying in the future.\u00a0 You must come back to TODAY to execute on those goals and action plans to make TODAY and TOMORROW unfold the way you want.<\/strong> Remember, it is your actions and decisions you make TODAY that shape your future.\u00a0 Dwelling in a perpetual state of intentions, worry, planning, analysis, and future-based thinking does very little in shaping your results today.\u00a0 Again, results come from the actual decisions and actions you make TODAY, not what you intend to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let me ask you a few business coaching questions.<\/p>\n