Imagine yourself as the captain of your very own row boat.
In your row boat, you work super hard. Every little inch forward is won by your hard work rowing. It’s exhausting. But you love your little row boat. This is what it’s like to be self-employed entrepreneur.
When you move up to a sail boat, you’ll probably get your first assistant or “first mate.” You’re still in control but now you have some more help. You get to travel farther, get advice and help from your first mate, and the boat has a bed. You no longer have to sleep sitting up while rowing (this kind of how it feels to be a new entrepreneur, amirite?)
Continue on to a yacht where now you have a first mate, maybe a cook, a cabin boy, and an engineer.
Are you actually working harder as the captain of a yacht than you were as the captain of your row boat? Probably not. If things are going smoothly, you have more time to strategize your route, create direction for a more gourmet menu in the kitchen, and maybe re-decorate your state room (because now you have even more than a bed). All while the members of your crew are happily working as a team.
How about when you move up to being the captain of a cruise ship? How busy is a cruise ship captain? A cruise ship can be thousands of times bigger than a row boat. Are those captains thousands of times busier and working thousands of times harder? Nope. They get to go chat with the guests. They wear nice clothes… they’re not slugging it out in the engine room. However they are aware of what’s going on down there. And they know what’s going on in the kitchen/galley. They are driving the direction of the ship and yet they are not doing everything on the ship.
So applying this metaphor to yourself as an entrepreneur– What would happen if when you moved to a sail boat you hired someone who thought they were smarter and more clever than you as your new first mate? What you became co-dependent? What if they started sabotaging, controlling, and just overall being a stinker pants. What if you took that person to your yacht? What if they fought with the new cook you just hired for your new galley. Chaos and misery would ensue. You would feel trapped, frustrated, and maybe hopeless.
Some business owners fear growing their business because they believe that chaos and misery is inevitable for growth.
This is simply not true. At Soul Sed Academy, we believe you can grow as a healthy and competent captain no matter the size of your boat. You can’t out-source the captain role. You just need to find incredible first mates.
Here is the truth:
- Growing does not mean you have to work harder and longer and wear yourself thin.
- You must stay in the captain role, but being the captain doesn’t mean you do everything.
At Soul Seed Academy, we become your best first mate possible. We insist that you always stay in complete control. We try to take off your plate what stresses you most but in a way that as you grow, you can bring more team members in to build your vision with you.
It’s not harder to be the captain of a row boat than it is to be the captain of a cruise ship.
Growth doesn’t have to mean stress, more work, more burn out.
Soul Seed Academy shows you how to be the best possible captain of your business.
