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Burnout
It is terrifyingly real. I see it and combat it in my coaching practice on a regular basis.
My ideal clients, owners of successful financial services businesses looking to drive enterprise value and best in class profits, are always trying to navigate between important and essential things…leading to burn out.
What do you do when there is too much to do?
In most cases, business owners just burn themselves out. Faced with less staff than necessary and with the usual necessity for them to still be driving sales results, they work earlier and later and tell themselves it will get better.
Maybe
The problem is that as fatigue rises, your decision making prowess goes in the other direction. There is only so long that you can operate beyond capacity before you start to make mistakes and the longer you are making mistakes (no matter how small) the more likely the occurrence of a large and very catastrophic mistake becomes.
In addition, your belief and care for your team also begins to degrade and that can have even worse results if you try and get them to join you in superhero land.
Note: I am not talking about emergencies when you need to jump in, as the owner and supply energy and leadership beyond normal levels. That is why we get the exit multiples my friends.
The solution(s)
- Commit to the practice of essentialism as eloquently explained in Greg McKeowns tremendous book “Essentialism”.
- Invest in soft and hard infrastructure. You need to not only staff appropriately, you also need to invest in training and development for them. If your team isn’t trained up, supported by the best tools and believe that you have their back…you are doomed for burnout city.
- Make sure you have some other business owners to talk to confidentially about it and get their ideas and, most importantly, their empathy and support.
I often serve as the initial sounding board with my clients when they start to teeter on the edge of burnout. Usually, I am calling them on it early and then helping them work their way back into more normal and sustainable effort levels and stress management.
Personally, I am a member of and recommend all my clients to be a member of Peer Advisory Councils through LX Council. While LX Council is the best imho (disclosure: I am a proud licensee), there are many other groups and any of them are better than none. My personal group that I am a member of is meeting the day before this newsletter will be published.
I will be bringing my COPI (Challenge, Opportunity, Problem or Idea) to share and discuss with 10 other business owners in a confidential and professional moderated environment. In fact, I called up my groups moderator Henry last week to go over what is happening and begin to dial in on one thing I could use some advice on.
Summary: Separate out what is important from what is essential and ruthlessly focus on what is truly essential. Additionally, don’t suffer in silence. Talk to someone that can understand.
Related: The Party Has Started: Why Financial Advisors Need Social Media Now