Greg Weatherdon

Greg is a sought-after speaker. Having faced many of the trials and tribulations facing the small business owner, Greg offers his audiences and clients practical actionable ideas to improve their organizations and ultimately get more “life” out of their business.

https://gregweatherdon.com/

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SBM #94 – Advice


For some time now I’ve have taken issue with the advice given small business owners on social media platforms under the guise of motivation and advice. Sadly, much of this advice being spewed forth by many of these so called experts is, in my opinion, nothing more than hype to grow their popularity.
But in order to balance my opinion and for research purposes, I have spent over 20 hours of listening to the audio version of the books of some of these more popular gurus and to be honest, my opinion hasn’t changed. Listening to how we need to crush it or 10x our activity, because if we don’t, we’ll never achieve our goals, is a little much.
We all need motivation
Now granted, we all need motivation at times and Covid-19 has certainly increased the need. The ongoing pressure and changes has certainly amped up the challenges and anxiety of running a business. This increased strain can be draining and after a while can leave us feeling a little lost, worn out or just fed up.
Covid-19 aside, many of us entrepreneurs have been there over the years. Most of the time it’s nothing more than a speed bump after a prolonged period of grinding it out. You see, successful entrepreneurs are for the most part pretty positive and optimistic individuals. We have to be, considering what it takes to survive, let alone thrive. That’s why resilience is such a key characteristic of those that are successful.
But even with our higher dose of resilience coupled with a higher than average positivity and optimistic outlook, sometimes it’s just not enough, the tank is empty and were done. It’s what I like to call a “Poor Me Day”! It’s a day where we feel sorry for ourselves and wonder what the heck we got into and is it worth it? It doesn’t matter how long you been in business, Poor Me Days can happen to anyone.
The thing is, successful entrepreneurs don’t stay down long, hence the name Poor Me Day, not days. Now on the bright side, a Poor Me Day can be almost like a mental reboot, where it clears your mental cache that has accumulated bits of negative experiences over a period of time. And much like your PC, this cache needs to be cleared every once in a while. So having a Poor Me Day is ok, because once cleared, we can get back to doing what we need to do.
A witty meme doesn't cut it when you advice
As I mentioned earlier, I do understand the need for motivation and sometimes it is the tonic we need to jolt us back to reality. But reading a pithy meme on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin, unfortunately barely qualifies as motivation.
Motivation is supposed to help us to reset our compass and get our head screwed on straight again. Reading a witty meme or a quote that is misattributed to some personality really doesn’t quite cut it.
Digging into a book or listening to an audiobook has usually done it for me. It gets me thinking. My preference is for the audiobook, especially when read by the author allows me to get a truer sense of their message and their personalities. As a bonus, I can listen to them just about anywhere.
However, what I find disturbing by the two top personalities who’s audiobooks I have just listened to, was the messaging and the tone in which it was delivered.
Let’s start with the messaging. The last thing you want when you’re down is someone telling you that you’re not working hard enough. Telling you that you’ve got to up your game and do a lot more, otherwise you’ll never make it and you’ll be nothing more than average. Or if your not prepared to give it your all, sacrifice everything and put in longer hours in order to dominate, you’ll never achieve the success you want. Really? You call that motivational? I call it bull. But unfortunately that’s the underlying theme of these books.
As for the tone, I found them to be a little too “in your face”! It’s been my experience that what most people need when they’re down,


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 December 8, 2020  5m