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Multiple streams of income OR lack of focus?
By JanJanzen | December 17, 2010
How many of you are on the phone doing business, tying your child’s shoes, and peeling carrots for dinner all at the same time? Or driving to the appointment, putting on your mascara and talking on the cell phone? Now that’s a scary one!
Entrepreneurs, especially women are amazing multi-taskers! We have this inherent ability to do more than one thing at a time, we take this ability very much for granted and we do it almost automatically. It is a wonderful characteristic and it can be what saves us in a day and gets us through. However, it can also be the number one reason we are not making the amount of money we want to make and be the reason we have not built the businesses we say we want.
Personally, I cringe every time I ask a woman what she does and she says, “I do many things, or I wear many hats!” I have been working with women entrepreneurs for many years now in various businesses and I have seen one huge downfall consistently and constantly with women entrepreneurs. What is that? They don’t focus. Women are so used to multi-tasking they bring it over to their businesses in a way that is oftentimes necessary but can also be counter-productive.
We have taken the term, “Multiple Streams of Income” and misconstrued the term to accommodate our need to do more than one business. I am not referring to the woman who has an executive coaching business and writes a book on coaching or business as an additional stream of business. I am not referring to the massage therapist who incorporates a line of aromatherapy products into their business as additional revenue and an added service to their client. I am talking about the woman who in involved in a network marketing business that sells vitamins and supplements and now wants to join another network marketing business that sells long distance services. Or the woman who has a hair salon that decides to set up a bookkeeping business on the side!
I am all for creating multiple streams of income. Don’t get me wrong! However, a lack of focus causes many women to become scattered and spread their time, energy and precious dollars so thinly that nothing ever takes off. Do you remember playing with a magnifying glass as a child? Maybe you tried to start a fire by harnessing the sun’s energy using the power of that glass. If you sweep a magnifying glass over the ground quickly you never catch the sun’s power or target it’s strength and efforts in one place and you never start a fire, ever!
It makes more sense to focus in with the power of intent and purpose and stay in one place long enough to build a fire that is more than a spark easily put out by the first winds of struggle. Do you want to build a pitiful little fire that is weak and vulnerable or a raging bonfire that will light up your life and can be used to start other fires around you?
Why as women entrepreneurs do we find it challenging or difficult to focus on one business? It may be that you are not really happy with your business and it is not fulfilling you at some level. Consequently, there is a level of dissatisfaction and discontent that is driving you to look elsewhere and not settle into your business.
Or you may not know how to grow your existing business to provide you with the additional income that you need or desire so it seems easier to just start something different.
Perhaps you have been convinced or lured into another business by promises of easier money, bigger bucks, more support or the enticement of a “new product or service, the latest and greatest.”
Growing a business takes tenacity, perseverance and time. Focus on one business, on one stream of income at a time is critical to the success of your business. Once up and running, once providing you with an income, once not needing constant nurturing and attendance, then you can cultivate multiple streams of income in your business. In the meantime, every time you feel tempted to stray and become unfocused, remember the magnifying glass and the bonfire you want to build in your business. Stay focused, hone in on your intention and take your business to whole new levels of success and prosperity.
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