Series: Do’s and Don’ts for Entrepreneurs
New York, 13th July 2008
DO: GET BORED!
On E.Factor, we talk passionately and endlessly about Entrepreneurs and how to build your business. But we rarely look at the various levels of activity that are needed to actually achieve your goals.
The word business itself implies being busy. Even when you look through history the original word actually came from the Dutch word "Bezig" (doing something) and the old English "Bisignis" * which stems from a derivation of the term for busy…
In fact, during the 15th and 16th centuries "business" related to anything requiring a person’s attention. Only in the 19th century do we find the first commercial establishments being referred to as "businesses". And all through history, business is directly related to being active, doing things, undertaking work or commercial activities. And we do, my goodness – don’t we all know how to get busy! We are masters at it!!
Not so long ago, when you asked someone "how are you", the answer would be "thank you, I am in good health" – these days though when you ask people the same question, the answer is preceded or even totally replace by "Bit busy" or "Rushed off my feet" and if you are lucky it is then followed by a description of all the various things people are busy with… it seems to have become a national sport to "be busy".
Ofcourse in the Netherlands, this sits very well with our Calvinistic heritage – we were the ones that coined the phrase "inactivity is the devil’s pillow" (they were great, these old sayings weren’t they? Copy-writers these days would be hard pressed to match them!). For the Dutch, being inactive is a BAD thing…and it seems the world and in particular our word, the world of Entrepreneurs, agrees with them. So we run around like lunatics, look for new solutions, partners, more work, more business leading to spending more time behind our laptops and on our mobile phones.
And our brains really hurt with all the hours we spend working, the struggle of keeping up with "information overload" and the necessity to keep doing things better then our supposed competitors. All the while – there is a very simple solution to this issue. Our minds were not designed to be constantly "ON", the powers-of-creation did a great job, by allowing our minds to continue sifting through things, even when we are not paying attention. Dreaming is the form that most of us are familar with – in one way or another. Much research is being done these days even on the ability to channel your dreams to provide solutions you cannot find in a waking state. A whole new industry opens up there! But we can also enforce this state of solution-finding by allowing ourselves to just sit still and do nothing for a while. For me personally – I go for a run when I face a problem. I don’t even consciously think whilst out there (I can’t even, my body requires all my concentration to cope with the running part!) but somehow a solution floats into my head and presents itself. This is my brain taking its own illogical way of putting together all the pieces that I threw in there – and it did a pretty darn good job! My "inactivity" may be a rather active one – but you could do the same by simply leaning back and staring out over your garden, or the neighbour’s if yours just makes you think of all the weeds you didn’t have time to remove…or even better, go and do get those weeds out. A tedious job which is just the sort of thing that let’s your mind wander! AND you have a happy partner at the end of it.
It is really important to allow this process to happen. It’ll be amazing what you can find. Don’t be scared that your business will fall apart when you take an hour out. You may find that that hour is the best you spent yet out of your entire 14-hour working day!
Marion
www.efactor.com
*Source: www.takeourword.com