Creative Entrepreneurs, These Cuts Bring Major Change
Here’s an important tip for creative entrepreneurs in 2021: Cut off people who aren’t good for you and your business.
It’s time to get real and get right. And that means cutting off stragglers.
By that, I mean cutting off people who have no real purpose for being in your life. They’re present but aren’t helping you get where you want to go and they won’t have a productive role if and when you get there.
Identifying Stragglers
You can determine if a person is a straggler by honestly answering two questions:
- Why do you keep him/her around?
- What does he/she do for you?
You should have solid reasons why the people in your life are there, and you should be able to list specific returns for the investment you make in your relationships.
Examples of good reasons and returns are:
She supports me. She motivates me. She encourages me.
He offers good advice. He invests in my ideas. He teaches me. He’s there when I need him to…
But if you dive in for answers and the only things you come up with are broad, generic answers, like:
I love him.
We’ve been together/friends since high school.
She’s my neighbor/sister-in-law/ cousin.
We go to the same church/class/club.
…those aren’t good reasons.
The people in your life should have a productive purpose. If they don’t, they’re like random hair that sprouts in odd, unbecoming places–they need to be clipped.
Why Creative Entrepreneurs Can’t Afford Stragglers
There’s this bizarre, counter-productive idea floating around, especially among women, that it’s noble to hang on through the bullshit.
People think it’s a victory or some badge of honor to end up with the man (or woman) who drug them down and through the trenches.
Accepting abuse, infidelity, or other sorts of ongoing foolishness isn’t honorable. It doesn’t make you a rider. And it damn sure isn’t noble.
It’s just evidence that you’ve allowed someone to you waste your time–time you can’t get back, a resource that you have invested in yourself, your business, and perhaps a worthy partner.
See: What Amazon Business Is and Why You May Want It
In case you haven’t noticed, for creative entrepreneurs, competition is fierce and getting fiercer.
According to HostingTribunal, there are over 500 million blogs and over 2 million blog posts put online daily. Upwork reported that over 1/3 of all workers are now freelancers.
YouTubing, podcasting, self-publishing… “The U.S. is in the middle of an independent labor explosion,” says a report from Fiverr.
And it’s not just in the United States, creative entrepreneurs are multiplying around the globe.
A lot of those people are in it to win it. They’re going hard.
They aren’t sitting around squandering time with fuck-boys, knuckleheads and deadbeats.
They aren’t side-tracked by gossipy gals, pipe dreamers and self-appointed judges.
Those who are winning value their time, and they’re picky about how they spend it and who they spend it with.
One of the biggest hold-backs people face is the individuals around them.
And if those people aren’t an asset, they can’t possibly be worth your losses.
If you really want to succeed, you can accept things that cause you to under-perform.
YOU are a limited resource.
Your family, your friends, your audience, your freelance clients and even your silent supporters need the very best version of you that they can get.
But when you keep stragglers in your life, you allow them to rob you and your entire circle.
And those are BIG FACTS ! (Credit to Moneybagg Yo for that phrase).
