Are you setting yourself up for success or failure?

Whether you're just getting started in your new business venture or
are now a veteran of the entrepreneurial world, chances are you
could fall prey to the scary statistic that most start-up
businesses fail within their first year.

What is going to keep your business from becoming one of those
statistics? Are you setting yourself up for success or failure?

Wherever you are in your business, take a look at your
foundation. If you got into business and it took off quickly, you might have
overlooked some of the basic building blocks. Do you have the
appropriate legal structure for your company? Have you created
space in your life for this business (both literally and
figuratively)? Do you have a business plan that is easy to
understand by anyone who wants to do business with you? Do you have
the buy-in and support from your family to do this? Have you
arranged for the right help for your other responsibilities that
you can't/don't want to do anymore?

Without the right foundation and systems for running your life and
your business in place, you, your family and your business will
suffer.

There are volumes of resources on the web to support you. If you
haven't done so already, check the Resources page on my website
(www.mombizcoach.com) for some help in these areas.

Your business is too important to allow it to fail. Get the support
you need and build a foundation that will allow your business to
flourish.

Where are you in your business? Are you just starting out, or are you ready
to start over, or somewhere in between? What best practices do you have
around your business foundation that you could share with other entrepreneurs?

To your prosperity!

Is failure the first step to success?

Surfing around on LinkedIn's Q&A board last night, a colleague of mine posed the question above. The answers he is receiving are really interesting, but I'm even more intrigued by the question itself: Is failure the first step to success?

I love the possibility that exists in this question. I think it all depends on who you are and how you define success. I once asked a client of mine what preconceived notions he had about failure, what judgments he held about it. He gave me a tremendously confident answer, saying that he believed failure was necessary to achieve success, was necessarily on the path to success, was to be expected if one were striving for success.

Totally true, I think. But...

What we discovered after a while is a certain pattern that he had. This pattern was sabotaging his efforts at success since he had internalized that failure was necessary for success. So what he had become successful at was indeed failure. He had several forays into different businesses that had all resulted in some form of failure rather than success. So, since it's natural to want to avoid failure (sometimes at all costs, meaning we never get off the couch and even try to do something we dream of), it is in some sense liberating and powerful to accept failure as part of the process that leads to/IS success. But we have to be careful that we don't set our focus on the actual failure, because if we do, that's exactly what we'll get.

My husband (then boyfriend, back in the day) said the most brilliant thing to me one day while we were mountain biking in the blazing summer heat in the North Georgia mountains. I was suffering from the heat and the exertion of the trail that was getting more and more technical as it climbed up what seemed to me thousands of feet. Then, as we started going downhill, I got scared I was going to crash as I barrelled down a narrow single-track that went between trees very close to the path and over rocks that jutted up everywhere. He told me: "Whatever you do, don't look at the rocks you're scared you're going to hit, because you will. Instead, focus on where you want to go, and your bike will follow where you look." That advice has stayed with me all these years, and makes so much sense to me in business. Are you focused on success, or are you focused on failure? Wherever your gazes lies, so follows your destiny.

Delicate balance: mothers in business

As a mother of three children under six years old who owns her own company, I spend a lot of time doing one thing while thinking I "should" be doing another. Sometimes I'm building Legos with the kids and I'll remember I'm on deadline for something I'm writing. Other times I'm sitting at the computer responding to a client or doing research on my target audience, only to have a nagging feeling that I should be back downstairs drawing silly sketches or playing hide and seek with the kids.

And I know I'm not alone. Mothers in business, "mompreneurs", have particular challenges when it comes to the issue of balancing business and babies. Without question, priority #1 is my family. I chose to be a mother a while back and have no doubt that this is exactly who I am supposed to be. But my journey to become a mother who also has a fulfilling career has been a not-so-graceful dance between passion, commitment, ambition, guilt, joy and inspiration. Can we truly have it all?

I'm collecting thoughts, witticisms, rants and such from women who are the primary caretakers of their family and who own their own businesses or who want to return to work but feel conflicted about it. If this describes you, please post your comments here.

Some questions to ponder:
1) Why do you (want to) work?
2) What are your biggest challenges as a mother/business owner?
3) Does your husband/significant other support your choice to pursue a career?
4) Does your work satisfy you? If so, why?
5) What do you have to sacrifice to be a "mompreneur"?
6) What is the most gratifying part of your work?
7) What inspires you?
8) What do you hope to teach your children by being a mother/business owner?
9) What does "success" mean to you?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!