It’s been a long journey of ups and downs since setting out into the ocean of entrepreneurship. I’ve often heard in podcasts and read in books about things ebbing and flowing and sometimes constructive interference leads to one big wave.

For me the wave happened this week. I’ve been juggling multiple projects at the same time for most of the time I’ve been doing this. There’s MakeOps, the cloud agency; SupplyCheck - the supply chain startup that grew out of an accelerator at the beginning of the year; and also a number of small side-projects; doing freelancing gigs on UpWork.

No Traction

The problem, apart from 3 freelance gigs from UpWork, none of these have generated any revenue. Even worse is that I’ve wasted a lot of time and money on things that I thought would be “hands-off“ mechanisms for growth. Things like SEO, running Ads and posting content on social media.

This week, as I posted my 20th unopened proposal, I realised that I need to make a change. Then I got a message from my co-founder that they weren’t feeling the motivation to continue. What I thought would be a hands-off B2B newsletter was crumbling like newspaper on a damp sidewalk.

Self Reflection

About a week ago I got sick. It wasn’t my usual cold that I get over in a few days, this was: fever, in bed illness (“man flu“ could be said). It felt like my body was shutting off from the pressure and constant pushing both physically (in the gym); and mentally. I couldn’t even bring myself to do emails.

But after a few days off, I’ve started to get back into a rhythm. One thing that has really made a difference is getting back to writing my journal. It’s a practice I first started a while back when I felt I was starting to forget things. But in the last few sessions I’ve tweaked my approach.

Before I would write biographically - what I did, if I went to the gym, how little sleep I got. Now I’ve taken on the task of completing two whole pages in my journal every time I sit down to write.

Why this works? I think after the first paragraph or two the niceties subside and you’re left with an sea of inner thoughts which you can then write on paper.

What I’ve learned?

Part of my struggle seems to be avoidance of doing what will move the needle. Doubling down on things that are not working. One thing I’ve been avoiding is getting better at 1 on 1 sales. The passive approaches of SEO and Ads are not working (or will take time that I don’t have).

I was reminded by Lenny’s Podcast with Ben Horowitz that in order to succeed you need to move towards uncertainty. This is what I’ll focus on. There’s also an idea of “embrace the cringe“ that I’ve seen pop up on a few inspirational posts.

My next steps are to learn this skill and overcome it and learn to be okay with failure and rejection. I need to learn to swim.

Top of mind this week

• Find a solution to get better at sales

• Reading a bit more about self-sabotage

• Finishing listening to Nick Kokonas and Richard Thaler