Enjoy the Long Summer Evenings

Who doesn’t love having a laugh and a drink by a roaring fire?

With the long summer evenings, many are starting to stay outdoors into the late evenings.  Though as it still gets chilly at night, the fire pits come out.  Watching flames grow can be mesmerising.  We get lost in their beauty as they warm us through and fuel the laughter to continue amongst friends and family into the small hours.  So many happy memories of banter around a fire pit.

We recently bought ourselves a fire pit.  We thought it would be idyllic… like all of these previous evenings we joined at the homes of our friends.  After all, they say to make fire you need 3 things… fuel, oxygen and heat.  A bit of wood, kindling and matches.  Easy.  We got this.

We quickly realised it is more complex than that. Even once it starts, it can be hard to keep it going.  It was an hour later, losing he will to love and 3 attempts before we got a roaring fire. We nearly gave up assuming the wood we had bought was poor quality – perhaps too damp?  Blaming it on the equipment seemed an easy option.

As we sat back finally and relaxed to enjoy the fire, I got thinking.  Like many things in life, it isn’t as easy as it seems.   There were many other considerations such as:

  • PATIENCE & FLEXIBILITY – mistake on fire 1… we kept addinglogs and smothered it
  • STRUCTURE – mistake on fire 2… wrong structure and it collapsed and smothered it
  • SUPPORT – mistake on both… thinking it was simple, thinking we could just wing it… we needed support and if we’d asked an expert it would have cut our time down significantly
And of course, STAY POSITIVE, FOCUS and DON’T GIVE UP.

These learnings can apply to our business.  We want our businesses to grow and we put so much effort, time and passion into making this happen.  But we don’t always get the results we want.  Often the business books will say “all you need to do is x” for amazing growth.  In reality, it is much more complex than that… we have our vision, we know the outcome we want, but often we don’t know the details of the HOW to achieve it.   As with making a fire, start with:

  1. Stay positive

I strongly believe that mindset is key.  A positive mind, a positive attitude can truly help a business owner in many ways such as dealing with challenges, seeing opportunities, dealing with knock backs, and it can have a ripple effect too.

  1. Be patient and flexible to the market changes

The market is changing weekly, daily even at the moment.  Those that are set in their ways will not survive – that much is clear.  Be open to new opportunities, new learnings, new ways of doing business.  Who would have even imagined a few months ago having piano lessons by Zoom?  With technology now it is imperative to but the right platforms for your target market.

  1. Set structure, direction, plan, and focus

Yes I know it is hard to plan for the unknown, but even through these weeks of turmoil… we all knew that the impact of Covid 19 was here for at least 12-18 months.  Reflect on past successes, reflect on the current situation, but then also start analysing and developing strategic options to move the business forward.  Evaluate these options and develop the action plans to deliver them.

This will give you great foundations for growth in your business.  If you need support to get deliver the results you deserve for your business then message me for a Zoom coffee 121… no obligation and guarantee that you will get lots of ideas to get you started.  [email protected] or 07388 022473

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