Where do you get your inspiration for running a small business?
For me, one of the places is my garden.
During the summer, I love sitting on my swing seat, watching the clouds drift across the sky or simply enjoying the blue sky overhead. That’s something of a rarity at times!
I’m not sitting there deliberately trying to think of business ideas. Quite the opposite. I’m switching off, enjoying being outside and letting my mind wander.
Yet it’s surprising how often a thought pops into my head.
Sometimes it’s an idea for a blog. Other times, something I’ve experienced suddenly makes me think about a client conversation, a system I’m using or a different way of approaching something in Focus Guru.
And occasionally, it’s the other way around. Something I’ve learnt through running my business makes me look at an everyday situation differently.
Which got me wondering.
Where does inspiration actually come from?
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
One of the things I’ve learnt from running my own business is that you don’t know what you don’t know.
That might sound obvious, but how can you look for an answer when you don’t even know there’s a question worth asking?
It’s one of the reasons I enjoy conversations with other people.
Whether I’m talking to a client, attending a networking meeting, having a conversation with my coach or simply chatting with friends and family, there’s always the possibility of learning something new.
Sometimes someone shares an experience that makes me think about my own situation differently.
Other times, they ask a question I hadn’t considered, reminding me that seeking help can introduce ideas and perspectives I might otherwise have missed.
And occasionally, a conversation takes a completely unexpected direction and leaves me with an idea that has absolutely nothing to do with what we were originally discussing.
We all have different experiences, knowledge and ways of approaching things, and we don’t always interpret things in the same way.
And I find it fascinating how a conversation about one thing can lead to thoughts about something entirely different.
What Has Formula 1 Got to Do With Business?
Conversations aren’t the only things that get me thinking.
Sometimes it’s something I’m watching on television.
I’ve enjoyed Formula 1 for years, and there’s a quote from Ross Brawn that’s always stayed with me:
“Luck is preparation waiting for an opportunity.”
It’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?
How often do we describe something as lucky without considering everything that happened beforehand?
And then there’s the teamwork.
An F1 pit stop might take just 2.3 seconds, but behind those few seconds are hours of preparation, practice and people working together.
Of course, things don’t always go according to plan.
Strategies fail, mistakes happen and occasionally teammates even collide with each other!
What interests me is how teams respond. The honesty, vulnerability, ownership and conversations that help them move forward.
Well, mostly!
I don’t watch Formula 1 looking for business inspiration. I watch it because I enjoy it.
But every now and then, something makes me think about how people work together, communicate or approach a problem.
And those thoughts sometimes find their way into Focus Guru.
Sometimes You Just Need to Look at Things Differently
Back to my swing seat.
As much as I love sitting on it, occasionally it needs cleaning.
And depending on how long it’s been since I last tackled the job, that can seem like quite a task.
The same goes for cleaning the patio.
When I look at the whole job, it’s easy to think about how much there is to do.
But I’ve realised that I approach these jobs in exactly the same way I approach larger projects in my business.
I break them down into smaller, manageable chunks.
Rather than thinking about cleaning the entire patio, I concentrate on one section.
Rather than tackling the whole swing seat, I focus on one part at a time.
Eventually, all those smaller sections add up to a completed job.
It’s something I regularly use when working with clients, but it took cleaning the swing seat and patio to make me realise just how naturally I’d started using the same approach in my personal life.
I hadn’t consciously decided to apply a business technique to cleaning the garden. It was simply how I’d approached the job, without stopping to wonder whether there was a right or wrong way to tackle it.
Which made me wonder how many other things I’ve picked up in one part of my life and carried into another without even noticing.
From a Passing Thought to a Blog
When an idea for a blog pops into my head, I tend to write it down immediately.
Usually, it’s nothing more than a heading. Just enough to capture the thought before it disappears.
At the moment, I’ve got 23 of those headings waiting for me to spend some time thinking about them.
During the summer, that thinking often happens on my swing seat in the garden.
Now that winter’s approaching, I suspect it’ll be in front of the wood fire instead.
Some of those headings will eventually become blogs. Others might take me in a completely different direction once I start exploring them.
And that’s part of what I enjoy.
I don’t always know where a thought is going to lead.
So, Where Do You Get Your Inspiration?
When I started thinking about where my inspiration comes from, I hadn’t realised quite how many different answers I’d come up with.
Some of them might seem like rather strange places to find inspiration for running a small business.
But perhaps that’s the interesting thing about inspiration.
You don’t always know where it’s going to come from, or even recognise it when it arrives.
Which has left me wondering…
Where do you get your inspiration? And has it ever come from somewhere that completely surprised you?