Welcome to the inaugral edition of GrowSolo!
This is my new home for exploring growth strategies for small and medium-sized businesses, on multiple horizons and in many varied contexts.
This platform has been a glimmer in my eye for quite some time now, with various iterations making their way through my typical ideation process and ending up suspended in the ether.
I wanted it to be a place to write, independent of my own businesses, but in support of my work across them all.
The curse of being a multi-passionate, multi-experienced entrepreneur is that you can find your way to justification for pretty much any direction, for any initiative, at any given time.
I’m an Activator, and a dyed-in-the-wool one at that, so I’m prone to rushing to the starting line in the service of momentum. But I wanted this to be more thoughtful and aligned, to serve me and my audience in signficant and meaningful ways.
One of the gifts this year has brought has been the discovery that opening up - inviting in the perspectives, wisdom and contribution of those who are close to you and who see you for your gifts - accelerates clarity of vision and purpose.
After much untethered navel-gazing, I finally brought the idea to my personal board of advisors to make sense of and clarify the purpose and perspective of my own thought leadership.
I received several helpful suggestions:
“Good writing comes from a process of self development. So where do you want to develop yourself?”
An excellent question.
When I’ve enjoyed my writing most, it came from documenting and reflecting on an experience of growth - personally, in my businesses, or with a client.
Since I believe growth is perpetual and integral to the human experience, I want this platform to help me ensure I never stop.
On the professional side, if I considered the totality of my work, it was always in the service of growth - either in my own businesses, in my clients’ businesses or as business owners themselves.
I presented this idea to my advisors, and one came back to this:
“Your most unique and powerful attribute in the work you do is that you can see and define growth on a long-term horizon, develop a strategy for that, but then you quickly zoom right in to the short-term horizon and figure out what needs to be done now, and later, to reach both short-term and long-term growth objectives.”
Multi-horizon growth.
If we focus on one, we lose the momentum of wherever we are right now.
If we focus on the other, we become untethered and preoccupied with what’s happening right now.
Building a strategy that considers them both gives us the best chance of building a business that serves us now and in the future, and gives us the momentum to move through our current state, and a purpose to work towards.
I realized that this is what I’ve been doing with my clients in my programs, and why this focus had finally felt so clear and complete.
As business owners, we are either trying to solve short-term problems or build a long-term vision, but we rarely marry the two together for a holistic picture of our business.
So we get confused as to whether we are growing for today or growing for tomorrow.
What I know about success is that if you are not building in complete alignment with your vision, your values and who you are as an individual, you will handcuff your growth.
If today I am worried about the next three months, I am, of course, going to set my attention on how to get through that.
But somewhere along the way, I get frustrated and fearful that all my near-term efforts are not tethered to a long-term vision.
Listen, we all fight fires. All the time.
But that doesn’t mean you’re burning down the house.
So, welcome to a new perspective.
Growth on multiple horizons.
In parallel. In service of the other.
Coordinated, intentional momentum.
I look forward to sharing these discoveries and adventures, and hopefully inspiring your own shift to growth that serves you today, and you in your future vision.