Ask Yourself This: What Have You Learned?

AYT: What Have You Learned? from Blumer CPAs on Vimeo.

Transcript:

Hey, Hey. Jason Blumer here, CEO of Blumer CPAs where we do consulting with creative agencies, creative businesses and I want to AYT. I want to ask you to AYT. AYT means, “ask yourself this.” Ask yourself this. So here’s a big question I want you to ask yourself. What one thing have you learned in the past six months that could help you grow as a business owner in the next six months? What are we doing? We’re doing self-assessment right here. I’ve been doing some self assessment over the past a month and a half. That’s basically sitting down, pausing just for a few minutes and looking back over your life, just the most recent six months and going, “What have I learned about myself and how am I going to apply that to the future?” This is what successful people do.

All those big wigs, the successful people, the way they got that way is they learned from the things they’ve been doing because we all go through bumps. We all struggle. What they do is they stop and go, “What did I learn from the bump that I went through?” So this is the really, a 12 month little window here. It’s the six months that you’ve learned something and it’s the next six months you’re going to apply that to. I can tell you what I’ve learned basically through this pandemic is I feel like this pandemic is overwhelming sometimes; the unknown, the uncertainty of it. But actually, I’ve been going through a lot of things this past six months, this past year, really. What I’m learning is about the layering effect. So mentally, physically, when I’m overwhelmed, what I’m learning is there are multiple layers in my life of things that I’m struggling with and I call all those layers the same thing.

I say, “I’m overwhelmed.” It’s all too big, and what I’m doing is I’m dumping all of it into a bucket along with this pandemic and this downturn and the uncertainty from it. I’m calling all of it overwhelming. Well, what I’m learning and what I want to apply to the next six months is I’ve got to identify each layer. I’ve got to look at that layer, identify what that layer is, figure out what it’s doing to me, what it means and peel that layer away and learn from just that one layer. Then when I move forward, I can actually move forward knowing this big, hairy ball of wax that’s overwhelming me is actually a multitude of seven or eight things. Well, what that does is it gives me wisdom to dive into those seven or eight things and I can work with my partner and other people that care about me to say, “Hey, what are the things you see me going through?”

As I peel those things away, what happens is I stopped becoming so overwhelmed because it’s just one thing. It could be many different things. I don’t know, it could vacuuming the house. I don’t know. I’m trying to think of something so mundane. Vacuuming the house, haven’t done that for three months. Well, that’s freaky. That’s overwhelming me. So it’s just crazy things like that could be a layer that I’m layering on top of other things. Then here comes this pandemic, this overwhelming uncertainty of the future and all of it now becomes this big hairball that I’m all worried about when really, it’s not that. It’s just seven or eight different layers. So I’ve learned that by assessing the past few months, and I want to apply that to the future so that I can start peeling layers away and go, “Wait, this feels overwhelming, but I don’t think it’s actually one big thing. It’s layers of multiple things.” Then I can start to peel those things away and I’ve become a stronger person through that process.

So that’s the question. Let me read it again, and I want you to ask yourself this as an entrepreneur, “What one thing have you learned in the past six months that can help you grow as a business owner in the next six months?” It’s going to make you slow down. I would say write it on a piece of paper or type it into something that the act of typing or writing is what’s going to help you learn about the thing you figured out in the past six months that you could apply to the next six months. I hope that ask yourself question helps you this time. Thanks so much. If you need us and our firm, we coach and consult with entrepreneurs who are dealing with the chaos of growth, the complexity of growth, we can help you with that. So let us know at [email protected] and we’ll get back to you. Thanks so much. Take care.