one step at a time…
Owning a business can be incredibly overwhelming! There’s an old riddle that goes, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer of course is “One bite at a time!” The answer is just so obvious but it’s easy to forget that when you are looking at the big picture as a whole.
Luckily, I’m surrounded by a great network of people, A+ clients, and a very patient wife! I find that if things seem too big to deal with or I have too many balls in the air, it’s time to take things one step at a time. If I slow down and spend a little more time in the details, momentum will take over and I’m back on track in no time.
I took this picture last year when my oldest got married. It was at an Air BNB in Michigan. 113 steps down to the water. Steep steps. I was told it had access to the beach but it never dawned on me that this would be the access. Honestly, the picture really doesn’t do it justice.
I’m not particularly afraid of heights, but when I got to the top of the stairs for the first time and looked down, it rattled me. Something about looking out across the vast openness of Lake Superior while trying to navigate that staircase left me feeling a little nauseous and weak in the knees.
I had to tune out the water and focus on one step at a time. (That’s why I know it was 113 stairs.) Eventually I made it to the beach. And of course it was amazing! We had a fire, skipped rocks, found treasures, and listened to the water hitting the rocks along the coast.
I would have been pretty down on myself had I not just dealt with it. And of course, once you do it once, it’s easy as can be after that. That was the takeaway of the whole experience. When things seem tough, focus on one step at a time and it’s amazing how quickly the hard things become easy.
-Gipson-