Whether it’s a generational thing (I’m at the tail end of ‘Gen X’) or an only child thing, but I have always had a fascination with ‘more’.
I wouldn’t qualify it as an unhealthy obsession, at least not all the time. I do get a little gadget obsessed, scrolling through Kickstarter campaigns, ready to buy at a moment’s notice. With our daughter, I’m always looking for something cool to buy her. I use the hell out of our Amazon Prime membership – my UPS store mailbox is almost a daily deluge of boxes with cool things galore.
But with my business dealings, I’ve tried to be a bit more introspective into this mini obsession with ‘more’. I can get tied up in the numbers game. Trying to beat my self-appointed goals for the month/quarter/year in terms of clients gained/revenue earned, comparing my numbers to last years’ and always looking forward to ‘more’.
But the looking forward to more can cause me not to enjoy the new client I just signed. Another relationship added, another member in the Shout It Out Design family. It should be a warm feeling that lasts a fair amount of time, but it can get overshadowed quickly by the thoughts of “Well adding that client was nice, but what about more?”
Taking the time to enjoy the now and reflect upon the excitement that is a rapidly growing business should be enough to keep me content. And usually it is. Looking back at where I started in 2010 – with two clients (my father & father-in-law) and now am approaching 100 clients in 2016, I’m excited about where things continue to be headed. But I continue to focus on making sure that ‘more’ doesn’t get in the way of providing awesome services for the clients that are already in for the long haul with me.