Things to consider when starting your first business

[Jed Smeenk]

Hello,

I have been researching what some of the major obstacles are, that people have to overcome to start their first business. I would love to hear what your #1 major obstacle to starting your first business was, and how you overcame it. Hopefully it will shorten the learning curve for others as they read.

[HooktoWin]

The #1 obstacle in our business was (believe it or not), a lack of emotional intelligence.

It seems counterintuitive and unimportant, yet that almost destroyed our first business.
It shows up in strange and bizarre ways.


Assuming offense when there is none.
Getting hung up on what you don't have and can't do (instead of what you do have and can do).
Using pure emotion to guide reasoning and decision making.
Putting up with toxic behavior from partners, employees, customers and even myself.
Allowing fear to dictate how I respond to crisis.
Being controlled by false beliefs and limitations.

And on and on.

Learning to be emotionally intelligent at first glance, seems pointless, boring and insignificant.

But focusing on this one area has enabled us to make many of the positive changes entrepreneurs are taught to make.


We saw a 10x increase in productivity.
Our experience showed us that emotionally intelligent people don't need to be micromanaged.
Our businesses attract other emotionally healthy customers. These customers typically spend more, trust us and pay on time.
Our trust for others, in our team, our customers, our partners grew.
We spent more time on the business and making it grow because everyone knew what to do.


Our dramatic turnaround started with a few simple questions.


What is emotional intelligence?
Why do we need it?
What does emotional intelligence do?
How do I improve it?
Where do we start?


For us, everything started there. We were lucky enough to have stumbled on to it early on and it's been a game changer.