For some reason, I picture a old monk, in flowing orange robes, stroking a long beard and gently laughing as I write this.
Peter J. Smith, in his book called OnWard! (published in 2000) said that success is a spiral. I keep proving to myself over and over again that he’s right.
It’s Not Deja Vu
I’ve just reached another deja-vu point my business. It’s happened before, and it always freaks me out, because I think “after all that, how the HELL did I end up back here?”
It’s because success is a spiral. You’re back where you were, but you’re up on another level. Here’s the short version of the story…
The first day I hung up my virtual shingle I decided to setup a consulting package alongside my travel writing. It was here on andyhayes.com in fact – the first domain I had. Since I’d been a consultant for years (though not independent), I decided, why not offer a package similar to what I do in my day job.
That package was called a content upgrade. It was cute and clever, but it lacked the refinements and clear execution that I have developed after doing so many of them.
Once that was working, I started to expand. I split everything out and put all of my content strategy and tourism marketing stuff over on TravelOnlinePartners.com. I added team members and offered soup-to-nuts bells and whistles.
As of yesterday, I am standing back on that point on the spiral. I decided to pull back, drop everything, on focus on the stuff my team and I totally rock and love doing. As I mentioned in the blog post the explains it all to my tourism customers, if it in’t your best work, it isn’t worth doing.
I could be frustrated – I’m now back where I started. But I have learned so much in that one trip around the spiral – and although on the surface it looks like I am back to square one, in reality I’m no where near it.
Over to You…
Well, what do you think? And, better question – are you doing your best work?