What Happens When the Boulder Rolls Down Hill?
Okay, long hiatus here, but I'm back.
I started writing a few years ago before gaining true experience. In hindsight, I was a fake entrepreneur. I cringe looking back at those articles. But hey, we live and learn.
This is why I'm starting fresh. March 5th is when I am writing this article. And this is when I finally feel (semi) qualified to share some stories. This blog will be wide ranging - from war stories in the trenches of business ownership to personal finance and productivity. There won't be much of a cadence to my posting, so I hope you enjoy them as they come.
When the boulder rolls down hill
Entrepreneurs love talking about pushing the proverbial boulder "uphill". It looks something like this:
Of course it's hard. It takes effort, time, and sacrifice. And it's been spoken and written about at nauseam. But what isn't spoken about is when this boulder rolls down hill. Like this:
No one speaks of this. And it's because the business is working. The entrepreneur has found product market fit, whatever this may look like (clients, products, industries). They're flush with cash (or so it seems). "They're crushing it!"
But... are they?
A quick story. I started my entrepreneurial journey in August 2020. For the first two years things were relatively the same. I operated a one-person business with a few contractors, had consistent cash flow, and great margins. But I never “hit scale” as some would say. The business earned $15k - $20k per month in revenue with ~95% profit margins. Great business! And honestly, an easy business.
In July 2022 I decided to switch it up. In hindsight, I’m not exactly sure why or how this decision came to be (I'll save this one for another time). However, I felt ready. I felt ready to scale. And scale we did. I pushed hard for 12 months. Outbound marketing, hiring, onboarding new clients - the whole shebang. And guess what? That boulder I was pushing uphill for 2.5 years started rolling downhill, and it turns out that boulders rolling downhill tend to pick up speed, fast.
This was 10x harder than pushing it uphill. Pushing the boulder uphill is fun. I was testing new strategies, trying to find client fit, and building out new offerings. The key word in all of this is new. New is fun!
Drinking from a firehose
But soon my small, simple business went from a one-person show to a twelve-person party. During this time, revenue 6x'd and all I heard was: “wow, you’re crushing it!”.
But all I could think about was Brent Beshore's quote on entrepreneurship:
“Operating a small business feels like a daily knife fight where you get out of bed, try not to get stabbed, get back in bed, and do it all over again”.
This was me. All I could think was: “I am drowning and want to burn my laptop”. But LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever other social media platform you’re on will show you otherwise. Everyone looks like they’re “crushing it”. LinkedIn-fluencers will buy someone’s coffee at Starbucks in the morning, adopt a dog, save a child from traffic, and then run a “very successful coaching business”. All in one day!
Guess what? It’s bullshit. No one does all these things, it's a fantasy we play in our mind, but in reality is impossible. "Having it all" is actually impossible. You can have bits and pieces, but the expectation of having it all is not grounded in reality. I learned this the hard way...
In August 2023 this boulder nearly bulldozed me. It was a close call. It was burnout in the most classic sense, as I yearned to have it all - and have it all, now. But this burnout was challenging, because how do you really know when you're burnt out? I still woke up every morning, exercised, and slept well.
So the question was: "If I'm ticking the boxes, then am I burnt out?"
This is something I asked myself thousands of times from January to July (2023). I kept thinking: well, I sleep, I eat healthy, I exercise. I tick all the boxes! Beautiful!
But then in August it hit me square in the face. We lost a bid for a large contract. It would have been the largest one we ever secured. I thought receiving the dreaded "no" email would make me angry, envious, or curious as to why our firm wasn't selected. But instead I was greeted with a pure sense of relief. This was weird. It would have added ~$80k to our bottom line, and I was thankful we "lost" the bid.
Boom, there it was. My lack of excitement toward winning new business (and money) had disappeared. And once I looked further inward, my excitement for a lot of things was gone.
I started noticing how I wasn’t excited about, well, anything. A great surf session? Meh. A great dinner with my partner? Meh. A trip of a lifetime planned with some close friends? Meh.
Objectively, and from the outside looking in, things were great! A thriving “7-figure” business, an income that produces a great lifestyle, yada yada yada.
But where was my excitement?
I’ve thought about this a lot. What I have come to realize is that everything I had been doing was for money. Everything became an NPV analysis. More money meant more investing. More investing just meant more money.
Of course, this is important. But never once did I think: “Oh wow, this is buying me more time, or a great trip with my partner”. Everything in my life became a finance equation. Everything became a recipe for compounding.
I wish I could say there is a magic script, or a system to implement that got me through it. But that's not the case. No morning routine or productivity hack will assist with burnout. It just leads to more things being stacked against us. What has worked (and I am still working on this) is the acceptance that the boulder will always be rolling down hill. And that's a good thing!
I won't be able to "get on top of everything". Because as soon as I do, new things will just pile up overnight. And I mean this quite literally - our inboxes tend to gather crumbs every waking and sleeping minute. It's this acceptance that has helped most. That I won't be able to get everything done, please every person, and say yes to every opportunity. It's not feasible. Nor should it be desired.
And so, the boulder continues to roll, which I am grateful for. I am no longer trying to keep distance between myself and that boulder, rather I'm just trying to be with the boulder.