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The Entrepreneurial Mindset – Choosing to Live a Balanced Life

Guest post by: Debbie Lessin

Article Overview: Being a sucessful entrepreneur requires a certain mindset. Everything in life and business is determined by choices. And entrepreneurs have more choices than most. Debbie Lessin, CPA/Author/Entreprenuer for over 26 years has made lots of choices, both good and bad. But the choice that she's the most proud of, that one that she's worked hardest at is choosing to live a balanced life, choosing to become Zen Debbie. A small entreprenuer, by choice, Debbie knows that life is a balancing act. She shares her self in a way to help her fellow entrepreneurs to follow their own path, become the kind of entrepreneur that they choose to be.

The Entrepreneurial Mindset – Choosing to Live a Balanced Life

To be an entrepreneur requires a certain mindset. You must be a risk taker. You choose personal, professional and financial risk to pursue an opportunity. Not everyone who is skilled at their profession or has an idea worth pursuing is cut out to be an entrepreneur. Businesses start. Businesses fail. And the reasons why they fail vary from bad management to poor planning to inadequate capital to miscalculations of market acceptability of the idea or product to economic and social conditions.

Having owned my own business (full time) for over 26 years, I can say without hesitation that I have that "entrepreneur" mindset. I have grown my business. I have downsized my business, 3 times in fact. In the end, I am back employee-wise where I started at - me, myself and I. My client base is mature and thankfully stable. I have enough repeat business to survive the yearly fluctuations without panic or the need to constantly seek out new clients. Business is down about 10% this year. And dollar-wise that feels significant to me. And yet, it's doesn't surprise me. I see how little my clients are doing - no real estate purchased or sold, few new businesses started, and a few finally closed. It makes sense given the state of the economy. Tax returns this year are simply easier, thus they cost less and revenues are down.

Being the detail oriented person that I am, I have weekly statistics on my billable hours and can see the year to year trends. I'm working a comfortable productive three days a week post tax-season and have been doing so for almost ten years. But I am also watching cash flow this year very carefully. I am thankful for the reduction in costs ($1000/month) generated by my moving the office last year. To work less and so far maintain the status quo in a brand new office space closer to home that I love...in my mind, I've hit the entrepreneurial jackpot!

I am in a service oriented business that is totally dependent on me. As a result, my earnings are limited by the hours that I am willing to work. I've learned from experience, that the money I ultimately netted when I had more employees expanding the revenue base was no more than what I take home now and often less. So I chose to no longer stress myself out managing employees when I could devote that time to better managing myself. And if there is one thing that I know, it's this - my life is not all about the money. If I wanted to just make money I would have been better off staying in the corporate world.

I've become a serial entrepreneur too, starting or participating in other business ventures, Balancing Act Productions being my creative passion. Me, being me, I take a hobby or passion and figure out a way to turn it into a business. That's just who I am. That's not to say that all these business are financially lucrative. They are not. I've made stupid mistakes that have cost me dearly, both emotionally and financially. To this day, I still make significant payments on debt for a business that is no longer part of my live. I do so conscious of my mistakes, thankful that the emotional pain that has finally passed. I have forgiven myself for being so stupid, for letting emotions blind me to not being the smart business woman that I am.

I've grown personally and professionally to the point where I control my CPA business versus it controlling me. And I even manage to do this during tax season when the hours seem endless. It still amazes me each and every year how even in a business guided by regular compliance deadlines nothing is seemingly the same from one year to the next. That's probably a good thing as then I'd be sure to be bored. We entrepreneurs need to shake it up sometimes just to shake it up. It's the thrill of the next thing that drives some of us. So much so of course that we lose focus on the important tasks at hand. Not so in my service oriented business. My clients are buying my brains, my expertise. And while I have had good employees over the years, I have yet to be able to clone myself. And at this point in my life and career I don't have the energy any more to try. Thankfully I don't have to.

Don't get me wrong. I am full of energy. I am your typical type A, over-achiever. For many years I was an overstressed mess. Little things set me off, tensing the muscles of my left shoulder/neck into a hardened knot, keeping me up tossing and turning much of the night. I was the last kid on the block to embrace the technologies of fax, scanning and email. It was one more thing to learn, one more thing to manage in a day that was already too short of hours. The phone ringing endlessly on a tax season day would be enough to set me into a tizzy. Believe me, it wasn't a pretty sight to behold.

And now...well, the phones barely ring, emails the soundless preferred method of communication, providing a well documented audit trail along the way. The quiet office makes for a happy Debbie, a productive Debbie. The truth of the matter is that most of the things that we let set us off are truly unimportant things in life, the things that really don't count for much. We waste precious time focusing on things thing do not really matter instead of focusing instead on those that do.

Over the years, I have become Zen Debbie, a balanced wonder who today lets most things simply roll off her back. I do not stress out unless there's a legitimate issue, not something merely irritating. If I do, I try to make it a day trip, the issue being out of my mind, out of my life by the next tomorrow. I've spent over 15 years perfecting this Debbie, creating her in fact. I did so slowly, consciously knowing that as I turned 40 and my business turned 10 that something had to give. Why was I working so hard? What did I want out of this business? I set on a path to figure it out.

Choices...it's all about choices, the choice to downsize, the choice to stay small. We read and hear about those entrepreneurs who make it big, go public, and make millions. And yet, they do not interest me. I am positive that there are far more entrepreneurs out there like me...small by choice, opting for a lifestyle where they have time for family and friends, for a life outside of work, where it's not all about money.

I know that for me, by choosing to be an entrepreneur I gave up certain things. I would have made more money by staying in the corporate world, becoming the Director of Taxes at some large multi-national company, cashing in on stock options, buy-outs and the like. I spent my 30's growing my business and my 40's figuring out how to live the rest of my life. I never got married. I never had kids. And while I can't say that being an entrepreneur was why, I can't say that it wasn't either. My brains, energy, self-confidence, and successes intrigue men but intimidate them too. But I can only be who I am. And now in my 50's, I am living a life full of rewards for the time I've put in, the lessons that I've learned and the experiences that have shaped my existence.

In the early years of business I worked seven days a week during tax season, endless hours where I suspect I was no more productive than I am today working far less. I make enough money to have a comfortable life. I purchased my own home fifteen years ago. I was lucky to buy in an up and coming neighborhood at a time when the prices were just that...up and coming. Despite the current downturn in real estate prices, I have equity, equity which I acknowledge tapping into to advance my creative businesses and passions. My 15 year mortgage is at pretty close to rock bottom rates - 4 3/8%. My credit rating is finally back over 800. I continue to support myself in a manor to which I have become accustomed. I don't deny myself much of anything, especially if it's on sale! Most importantly, I smartly saved $15,000-$20,000 each year for retirement for many years. Despite the markets ups and downs, I have a significant nest egg to fall back on, to be proud of.

But don't think for a moment that I don't remember the start-up years when I was living on credit cards, paying my employees more than I was taking home, barely breathing as the debt to grow the business was suffocating me. I do, quite clearly in fact. That's the thing about long term entrepreneurial survival. You can look back proudly but remember when. You can pass on what you know and hope to help other entrepreneurs find their way.

I have an awesome life right now. Will it stay that way forever? Well one can hope, can't they? The truth of the matter is that life does has its up and downs. For me, now is an "up" phase. But I know and do acknowledge that it did in fact follow a "down" phase. Of course, the "up" is so much better, in every way. Life is truly a balancing act! I look over my life, my path, my choices and I know this...I don't for a minute look at anyone else and wish that I had their life.

Many of my friends are other entrepreneurs. We grew up together, forged a path, shared our joys and sorrows, our accomplishments and defeats. We understand how hard being an entrepreneur truly is. But we also understand that the choices we made have enabled us to live the lives we have now. We have taken opportunities to expand our horizons, learning new skills, taking on new challenges while not forgoing the core of our existence.

I have become the Balance Lady by choice. Because I didn't like that overstressed person that I was. I like the calm Zen me, the person who will call to schedule a massage or acupuncture appointment to fix that shoulder knot rather than ignore it and hope it goes away. I have learned over time that everything gets down -at work, at home... even despite no one to help me, the single girl that I am. My bills get paid. The world does not fall apart if I don't check work email if I am not in my office or work three days a week in non-tax season. In fact the world with a happy Debbie is a much better place for all my friends, clients and family to live in!

I celebrate the Balance Lady me every day, by the choices that I have made and continue to make. My life is truly a balancing act, as is yours. And it's all about our choices. Examine, review, implement. Take it one step at a time, baby steps at that. You know your strengths and weaknesses. Now accept them and move forward in a way that takes advantages of the strengths without giving in to the weaknesses. YOU have the power to create your own life. You have already done so by choosing to be an entrepreneur - your kind of entrepreneur and no one else's! Will this easy? Of course not. But since when has being an entrepreneur ever been easy?

For many, these economic times may have brought panic...an unemployed spouse, reduced revenues, less to do. Adjusting costs is an ongoing process, making choices, weighing the alternatives. You may already be working less, not by choice but by circumstance. It's how you use this time that can make the difference. Of course you should be doing what needs to be done to generate new business. But take advantage of some of this time to work on YOU. Are you working less and playing more? Do you have more energy because you are less physically engaged at work? Or is your brain on constant overload or panic? Look at this time as an opportunity to make new choices, to forge a new path, a path of your choosing. Take this time to figure out what kind of entrepreneur you truly want to be. Because while the economy has its ups and downs so does the panorama of your life - your spectrum of opportunities. It's all in your attitude and approach. You too can become "Zen Debbie" with time, patience and confidence in yourself. And you already have so much of that, just by being the entrepreneur that you are!

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Article Tags: balanced life, balancing act, choices, entrepreneurial mindset, entreprenuer, zen



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