6 Steps to Determine If You Love Your Inner Boss

June 15, 2021
Category: Management

During a recent coaching session, one of my relatively new clients – the owner of a $2.5 million contracting company – told me how burned out he was. So, I asked him, “Why don’t you take a vacation?” He tried to avoid answering by making a joke. He said, “My boss won’t let me because things are too busy for me to take time off. You know my boss is kind of a tyrant.”

The joke is that my client owns his own contracting business. He is his own boss!

Being his coach, I had to dig into this, so I asked him: “All joking aside, how good a boss are you to yourself?” I won’t bore you with the details of our conversation.

But, it’s an important question to ask yourself if you own your own business because if you’re not a good boss to yourself, you can burn yourself out, neglect your family, hate your business, etc.

So, how good a boss are you to yourself? Try this quick assessment:

So if you’re the owner of your own contracting business, I’d like you to take a minute or two to consider what type of boss you are to yourself. Here are some questions to get you started. You can add more if you’d like.

Does your boss:

• Allow you to work regular hours?
• Often make you work nights and weekends?
• Expect you to answer emails and calls and fight fires even when in the evenings, weekends or when you’re on vacation?
• Make you feel guilty when you’re not working?
• Bug you about things you need to do, even at 3:00 in the morning?
• Does your boss give you time off to take holidays or vacations? Even during the busy season?

How’d you do? Using the scale below, how would you rate this “inner boss” of yours when it comes to allowing you to have a full and uninterrupted life away from work?

Why is your inner boss so hard on you?

I’ve found that when your inner boss doesn’t allow you to have a life away from work, it’s because he or she is scared that bad things will happen to your business if you’re not on duty all or most of the time. I’ve had clients say to me,

“I’m the glue that holds things together. If I weren’t here, things will fall apart” or

“I’m scared that if I take my hand off the wheel for a second that we’ll lose money.”

If you have thoughts like this, it’s no wonder your inner boss is a tyrant or just grudgingly tolerates you having a life away from work. It’s scared that if you’re not giving your business your constant attention, that bad things will happen.

On the other hand, if your inner boss allows or actively encourages you to have a full and uninterrupted life away from work, usually it’s because it feels that your business can run well without you.

What should I do next? Here’s some help:

If you have a tough inner boss who won’t let you have much of a life, you’re not alone.

In fact, there are so many contracting company owners like you that I’ve decided to offer a free monthly training series, starting June 23rd, to teach you how to create a thriving business that can practically run itself.

Each month I’m going to walk you through a different aspect of how to create a business that can run without you with plenty of Q&A time to answer your questions and worksheets to help move you along.

So, if you’re tired of having an inner boss who won’t let you have a life, and you’d like to create a business that can thrive without your constant attention, please CLICK HERE to register for training webinar #1.

I’m confident that you can transform your business into a business that can thrive without you and, as a bonus, have a happy, balanced life!

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