one of your full workdays and track all the activities you engage in. Write down everything you do and how much time you spend on each. Mark the FEEDING THE ALLIGATORS column for any activity that doesn’t lead to the strategic enhancement of the company and mark the DRAINING THE SWAMP column for any activity that boosts your business strategy.
•With your list of weekly activities in front of you, start creating a permanent “To Don’t” list. Identify at least ten things you will stop doing or will delegate to others so you can free up your time to focus on creating a better business.
-NOTE: If you are part-time freelancing, moonlighting, or running a “side hustle,” you may not have the resources to hire everybody on the list. If you’re making over 10K a year, spend a few hundred dollars and hire an accountant. Then scale from there.
| Activity | Time Spent | Wrestling Alligators | Draining the Swamp |
| Sorting mail | 15 minutes | x | |
| Working on my five-year business plan | 1 hour, 10 minutes | x | |
| Arranging travel for upcoming client visit | 50 minutes | x | |
| Create onboarding process for new employees | 2 hours | x | |
| Payroll | 1 hour 35 minutes | x | |
| Finishing the logo for a new client | 2 hours 20 minutes | x | |
| Create an org chart of positions needed to take the company to the next level | 1 hour 30 minutes | x | |
| Bookkeeping and filing quarterly taxes | 1 hour 35 minutes | x | |
| Meeting with client and revising graphics for website | 2 hours, 50 minutes | x | |
| Formatting spreadsheet to make it look more presentable | 35 minutes | x | |
| Meeting with a mentor or coach for lunch | 2 hours | x | |
| Identifying a plan to overcome the top three stumbling blocks | 2 hours 10 minutes | x |
A printable activity tracker can be found on the web at EntrepreneursParadox.com/ActivityTracker
1 Nov 12, 2. (n.d.). The Average Age of Successful Entrepreneurs Is Actually 45. Retrieved September 14, 2020, from knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/age-of-successful-entrepreneurs.
Seeing the Swamp and Not the Mountains
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
—Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland
I love seeing when the entrepreneurs I work with have the “light bulb moment.” This moment happens when, maybe for the first time, they begin to see past the swamp to the mountain range waiting to take them to new heights. Entrepreneur’s Island has always had mountains, but the monotonous and tiring daily drudge of wrestling alligators distracts entrepreneurs and keeps their attention focused on the swamp. Every start-up has a swamp full of alligators and every start-up has majestic mountains to conquer. The sad truth is that most entrepreneurs never make it past the swamp to begin their ascent. For the lucky ones who find the mountains on the island, they are able to take a completely different journey full of adventure. In the real world as I’ve worked with clients, I’ve heard this realization expressed countless times in more or less the same way: “I didn’t really think about what my company could eventually become because I’ve been so heads down this whole time.”
This is the first light bulb moment, when the entrepreneur sees the mountain and realizes that, if they are willing to completely change their identity and remove themselves from the swamp, they can achieve great things. The second big aha is when they realize their entire reality just shattered and now they have no idea where to start! But like my clients, if you’re willing to break free from the paradox and change your identity from service provider/product builder to business builder, you’re ready to chart a course forward while avoiding the common pitfalls along the way. Pitfall 1 is about seeing past the swamp and jungle thicket and discovering the exciting mountains waiting for you to climb.
Begin with the End in Mind by Picking Your Mountain Range
“Beginning with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.”2
When forming a start-up, most entrepreneurs don’t “begin with the end in mind” as the late Dr. Stephen R. Covey said. Instead, they start with the beginning in mind. What I mean by this is that most entrepreneurs want to create something cool, that has never been done before, and will change the world. But then what? What’s the next step after you create the next Facebook or TikTok? What do you do with your product or service after you create the idea?
Consider the history of the electric car. If I were to ask you the year, make, and inventor of the first electric car, what would you say? Elon Musk and the Tesla Roadster he released in 2008? How about Nissan and their electric Leaf? As it turns out, it was neither. The first production electric car was built in 1884 by Thomas Parker, a British inventor. Never heard of him? Don’t worry, no one ever has. Simply creating something revolutionary is not enough. Parker’s invention was groundbreaking and could have dramatically changed the world and the environment, if he had had the vision to go beyond the invention. Many people confuse being an inventor (or even an innovator) with being an entrepreneur. I certainly did in my first business. I thought if I built the most amazing, award-winning websites and interactive multimedia, the most revolutionary rich internet applications, or the best apps known to mankind, that would be enough. But being an inventor/innovator is not the same as being an entrepreneur. The paradox of focusing on the product and not the company kept me struggling in the swamp and wrestling alligators.
“S&P 500: The Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) Index is a grouping of the 500 largest US publicly traded companies. The index includes many high-tech and financial businesses.”
“IPO: Initial Public Offering (IPO), is the procedure a privately held company uses to ‘Go Public’ or start selling stock on the stock market or other exchange to outside investors. This highly regulated process is used to raise capital by selling shares of the company to the public. It is governed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).”
In the past, startups had the luxury to grow for decades in isolated markets, and the global economy was more of an idea than an actuality. The model had been built by names like Rockefeller and Buffett, and it required a mentor steeped in expertise to teach the secrets of building a successful company. But today the speed of business is accelerating at a rapid pace. For example, in 1935 the average lifespan of a company on the S&P 500 was ninety years. In 2020, the average lifespan of a company on the S&P 500 is only eighteen years. And it’s predicted that, by 2027, that number will drop to only twelve years and 75 percent of companies on the list in 2012 will be gone by 2027!
This
