Having been in business for over 25 years, I want to address an issue that is probably more common than we’d like to admit, but it’s also a very sensitive issue: Pressure. I owned a moving and storage company for 17 years, and I’d like to be able to tell you that in that time I was the perfect boss and never let anything get to me. But I’d be lying. I think we probably tried to grow the company a little too big too quick, and that might have added to the pressures. But the big issue for me was payroll. We had 50 or 60 employees, including 6 or 7 contract drivers who were paid about $3,000 to $5,000 per paycheck. In all, our payroll was about $50,000 every two weeks. That’s a lot of pressure.

On the off weeks, I would make the mortgage payment or pay the utilities. But those payroll weeks were a lot of pressure. You had employees who expected to get paid on time – which they were – but you had customers who didn’t necessarily pay me on time. That created unruly, unfair, unimaginable pressure on me. I’d like to share with you one of the dirty sides to owning a business, and that’s how we handle pressure sometimes.

I found that the way I would handle pressure was to take it out on other people who were totally innocent. At first, I would take it out on my wife. But she would kick back and I found out real quick that wasn’t very productive. But then I would take it out on some of my employees. Maybe I’d see someone use an extra coffee cup and think, “Hey, they’re wasting money!” I would randomly lash out at those employees, and this was unintentional and really a product of me not handling the pressure well. I finally came to the point of repentance where I would have to call up employees and apologize for how I was lashing out.

Finally, I found something that really helped me deal with pressure. Now, I’m not saying this is the only way or the best way to deal with pressure, but I found it worked for me. I was studying scripture and found that one translation for the word “praise” is “to shout.” That means that I could shout to the Lord and in an almost miraculous way feel relief of pressure. I would go into the warehouse when no one was around – I liked the warehouse because there were some good echoes in there – and just shout at the top of my lungs. A big, loud, full breath of air, bellowing shout to God. And here’s what I would say: “Thank you, Lord for taking care of me! Thank you, God because I know you’ve got an answer for me!” I knew that God would provide, but I would still have to work for it. Money didn’t rain down from heaven literally. I’d still have to go and chase after customers to get paid on time. But just like James 1:4 tells us, we are not to rejoice because of our tests and trials, we are to rejoice in the midst of our tests and trials. I would rejoice and be glad knowing that God would take care of me. And I would shout it!

I hope this helps you and I hope you find a way to deal with your pressure. Pressure is common for any of us who work in the real world, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But we do need to find the proper way to deal with our pressure. Thank you.

To hear the full 7 Minute Lesson, click here.

To read a transcript of the full 7 Minute Lesson, click here.

 

In my 25 years of being a business owner, 17 of those years were with a moving and storage company. I wish I could tell you it was a breeze and everything went perfectly. But the reality is, that moving and storage company was my school of hard knocks. It was there that I learned how to deal with customers and vendors, how to make systems for paying bills and dealing with collections, and how to negotiate for the best prices. It was practically like a college education for me, but I dreaded a lot of it to be honest because it was so difficult.

They say it’s lonely at the top. Well, that’s how I felt. I didn’t have a lot of people I could talk to at that time. I made a practice of not dumping a lot of my problems on my wife, even though she was active in the business. But I did spend a lot of time praying and talking to God and he was the source of a lot of my wisdom. I heard about a group of people called SCORE. They’re counselors for small business owners. One of the men from their group, Richard, came to my office and we chatted for a bit. Afterwards, I felt such a relief.

One of the things I realized while talking with him was that I was always trying to get bigger. My idea was that if I could just get big enough, my problems would go away. But then I found that starting small was actually very good for me. I was always pushing for more and more growth, but I was pushing outside of my normal growth pattern. I needed to learn to maintain what I had.

There’s a normal growth pattern to life. You wouldn’t take a third grader and try to put them directly into high school would you? Of course not. And I’ve been trying to help others see this same idea of a normal growth pattern ever since. After selling my moving and storage company, I was working in real estate and had enough spare time to volunteer at SCORE myself. I got to counsel other small business owners just like Richard did for me. During one counseling session, a young woman came to me with a business idea. She wanted to purchase a large, two-thousand square foot mall that had recently gone bankrupt and turn it into a Christian rec center. Now, the price was a real steal for the property. And I didn’t want to throw cold water on her idea. But this woman was a clerk at Wal-Mart. With her very limited business acumen and skills, there’s no way she would be successful. In other words, her skill set was nowhere near her desires.

Starting small is a crucial function in my approach. When you start small, you learn how to take care of what you have and maintain it. When I speak to my sales staff, I reinforce the idea that my main goal is not to increase sales as much as it is to do a perfect job for the customers we currently have. Like in golf, my job is to keep my eye on the ball of making our company better. If you focus on doing the best you can right where you are, you’ll find that over time you’ll grow at that natural and normal growth pattern. But starting small is the key.

To hear the full 7 Minute Lesson, click here.

To read a transcript of the full 7 Minute Lesson, click here.