Susan is a master chef; she thrives when she’s in the kitchen. Susan can easily put together an amazing meal for 10 or for 100 – it doesn’t matter. She knows food like the back of her hand. Susan was generally happy working for the catering company. Her clients raved about her food and often suggested that she should start her own company. Susan just laughed and went back to her duties in the kitchen.

Then one day something changed. It really changed. Susan was tired of working for someone else. Maybe it was a bad encounter with her boss. Maybe she didn’t feel appreciated enough. Maybe all those compliments finally sunk it. It really doesn’t matter why, but Susan decided to quit and start her own business.

At first Susan was excited. She was finally able to tell boss just what she thought. She had a great reputation and knew many clients would follow her to the new business.

Excitement gave way to terror as Susan navigated her way through the process of setting up a business. There were legal issues to be solved. She needed to find and equip a kitchen of her own. She hadn’t even thought of a name of her business. How would she advertise? What would she charge? Then there was money – lots and lots of money. And all that money was flowing out – for equipment, food, advertising and supplies. Susan still had her own personal bills to pay; where would she find the money for all this?

Terror gave way to exhaustion. Susan put in many hours before, but nothing was like this. She was the chef of course. But Susan was also the janitor, the sales person, the accountant, the inventory orderer and the strategist. She soon found out that 80 hour weeks were common. Susan knew she had complete control over her schedule. She also knew that when she didn’t work, she didn’t earn any money either.

Finally despair set in. She didn’t see a way out of this mess. She reminisced about the day when she worked at the catering company. She missed the days off and the interaction with co-workers. She seriously considered throwing in the towel and going back to work for a company.
What happened?

Many people become entrepreneurs because they’re really good at doing something. Whether that’s giving consulting advice, building houses, gardening, or anything else it doesn’t matter. You are most likely an expert at your craft.

The problem isn’t that you don’t know your craft; the problem is that you don’t understand the business of your craft. To understand the business of your craft you actually need three skill sets. Generally we know the technician or the craft. We need to add a manager and an entrepreneur and these are 2 very different skill sets. The technician is the doer; they crave a task and get it done. The manager is the planner and craves order. The entrepreneur is the visionary – the dreamer. You need them all!

An important concept for me is alignment – aligning your passion, work and overall life. Of course, to find alignment we need to know what our passions are. The reality for many of us is that we often don’t know.

I was this way for many years. I spent so much effort doing what I thought others wanted of me that I never asked the important question of what do I want for myself. As a result, I just plain forgot about passion. Sure there were things that I through were interesting, but passion – I don’t know about that.

When coaching I often get resistance when I ask about passion. I think we sometimes believe that we have to have all the answers right now. Actually we don’t. I recommend that if you don’t know where your passions are to try things out for one day – even one small step. Give yourself an afternoon to do what you really want. Then see how that feels to you. Give yourself permission not to have to know all the answers right away. It’s OK to be an explorer and try out many different things. You’ll soon learn what you like and before you know it you’ll begin to find those passions!

I’m writing this after a harrowing experience that’s also reminded me about an important lesson in letting go. I’m in Illinois for my brother’s wedding. Getting here was an ordeal.

My partner and I arrived early at the airport to check in for a flight. The terminal was in absolute chaos. There were people standing about everywhere and few people to assist everyone. I was asking where to go to check in the bag and kept getting pointed in different directions. After running around for quite a while to check in the bag we finally found the right place. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to check the bag.

We then went from line to line and ended up missing the flight. We ended up on standby. Ugh! After going through and not getting on 4 more flights, we were beginning to get real concerned. I was wondering if we were going to make it for the wedding. I noticed myself having a hard time letting go and trusting that we would get there.
At the 5th flight we attempted, there were 4 people who didn’t board the plane. Hmmm, maybe we would get on this one! With less than 5 minutes to go before departure one person went running toward the gate to get on the plane. We were called to the gate to wait for a seat. This is when I really had to focus on letting go of my agenda and trusting that the right thing would happen.

Eventually we did get on the plane, the doors closed and we took off.

I was reminded that I have such a hard time letting go. I was very frustrated that I wanted to do something to control or change the situation, but there was nothing I could do.

Letting go is an important practice in business too. Many times we want to control the situation or control our customer’s experience. There are just some things that we can’t control. Letting go doesn’t mean no preparation or research; rather, it means combining extensive preparation and research with a strong belief in yourself and your product/service. Then letting go and trusting your experience, skills and preparation to get your desired result.

I’m constantly reminded of the importance of letting go. Even when I don’t want to!

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

What was your answer to that question? Think about this question for a moment. In particular look as what isn’t being asked. No one asked “What do you want to do that you also think is marketable?” No one asked “What do you want to do that will pay your bills?” No one asked “What will you settle for?” The question was about passion. It was about what you found exciting and interesting.

When I’m career coaching one of the first questions I ask is “What are you passionate about?” I want to know what excites you. What gets you out of bed in the morning charged and ready to take on the day.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t think about those details such as marketability or income. Rather, I’ve found that we get derailed by these considerations before we even give ourselves a chance to explore the options. Give yourself the flexibility to dream about your work. A great question to consider is “What would you do if you won the lottery tomorrow and no longer had to worry about money?” This gives you the freedom to dream and think of the possibilities!

Then we can start talking about alignment – finding ways to align your passions and dreams with your work. That comes next…

Schwab had been going through round after round of layoffs. My job seemed to be nothing but deciding who stays and who goes. Needless to say – not fun!

I was reflecting on several seemingly unrelated things that I later realized were quite related. For about 5 years during the mid to late 90′s I developed a software program for petsitters – the people who come to your house while you’re away to take care of your pets. My partner was in the petsitting business and he was looking for software to use. I couldn’t find anything good, so I wrote something myself. To make a long story short I sold over 500 copies of that program!

That’s when I got my first taste of being an entrepreneur. I really enjoyed all aspects of selling and supporting that software.

Also, all the layoffs at Schwab were turning my body into a wreck. I was constantly aching or tense. I actually felt ill most of the time. I knew it was time to leave Schwab and I also knew that jumping to another corporate job wasn’t the right thing for me.

I also needed to heal my body. I literally felt myself dying from the stress. So I really took a jump and decided that I needed to spend time learning massage. I needed to get in touch with my body and also work on my own business. So I started a massage business in 2004.

As I started seeing clients, I realized that many clients treat their massage therapist like their bartender. Lots of guys were opening up to me and talking about pretty personal things. So I also took some additional training in life coaching. I had been exposed to the power of coaching as a client and thought it would be good to learn those skills working with clients.

More to come in part 3…

Wow, so today I sent the paperwork for form a corporation into the Secretary of State’s office. It feels like I reached a major milestone. Now that this business is becoming more and more real I thought it was time to start this blog about Tekpals and what better place to start then the story of forming the business.

I’ve always had a strong interest in technology. I remember when I was a kid I took apart my Grandparent’s TV. They were quite upset – actually I think that was the only time I ever remember them mad at me. The surprising thing is that I put the TV back together again and it worked afterward!

In school I studied accounting. All business students were required to take one class in computer programming. Most of the business students hated that class, but I really liked it. That started pushing we toward technology.

Early in my career, I maneuvered to get as involved with technology as I could. Eventually I worked more and more with accounting technology.

Fast forward to the mid 90′s…

I was spending a lot of time working on how to secure computer systems. At that time I was approached by Charles Schwab (the company, not the person) to audit the security of a new web trading system they were developing. I couldn’t refuse!

I was at Schwab for about 10 years. I moved from auditing the systems into managing security then in data center management. I learned much about security, availability, recoverability and maintainability of technology. I also learned a lot about web design and development. I really enjoyed the opportunities at Schwab, but was feeling more and more restless about the structures and bureaucracy of a large corporation.

I needed a break and decided it was time to leave.

More to come in the next post…