Things are Slow but Might Take Off

I thought I would post a quick update of where things are at with the business.

In short, they are a bit slow.

Historically, we’ve been slow from usually the end of summer until mid-fall. After that things have almost always picked up.

We haven’t really picked up yet. We stayed a bit busier through summer but since then, there hasn’t been too much.

That’s not to say there isn’t anything. I have regular small tasks, and of course hosting and maintenance are constant. In fact, most of the renewals for hosting occur in December and January so I’ll have those coming.

But projects have been quite slow. We finished some big ones, and I’ve been in talks with many that might start “soon”, but so far none have. So I don’t really have any current projects underway.

There’s a good chance that will change, though. I have a new one that just confirmed they want to move forward today, and there are a few other larger ones that may begin any day.

I’ve also begun many marketing initiatives in earnest, and I may see those start to pay off soon.

I’m also thinking of doing things like visiting other BNI groups and seeing if that gets me new clients.

And in general, I should be focusing on ways to improve the business while things are slow so that I can continue growing.

But it will be interesting to look back and see how we did for the year, and also reflect in the future on the significance of the lull. I think we’re still on track to do well for the year despite COVID, but I’d still certainly like to do more!

Where is the Line Between Narcissism and Self-Improvement?

This is a question that just popped into my head the other day, and I wanted to think through it: where is the line between narcissism and self-improvement?

I suppose I first need to justify why this is even a question.

First, I want to establish something I’ve talked about in other posts, that most human personality traits seem to be on a certain continuum. Often, if you slide too far one direction, you go from having a great trait to one that is loathed.

For instance, self-confidence: good. Arrogance: bad.

What’s the difference between them? In my mind, very little. Arrogance is just a little bit further along on the slider. Perhaps humility is a separate slider that also comes into play, but you see my point.

Likewise, while I don’t think that “self-improvement” is really a personality trait (though I suppose narcissism is), I think it still has an inextricable link with potential narcissism.

My thoughts aren’t totally settled on any of this yet, so I may not express myself clearly here. This post may be more of a stream of consciousness than one that actually makes a point.

First, let’s look at the common threads between them.

Both require a degree of self-focus, which isn’t inherently bad. Too much self-focus can lead to self-centeredness as a state.

It can also lead to selfishness, which I’m only now trying to define as being different from self-centeredness. I think being self-centered involves your thoughts and motivations which tend to be focused on yourself but are essentially entirely within your own head.

Selfishness, however, involves action. Specifically, action that harms others. I don’t think it’s selfish to be thinking of yourself, but it is selfish to make decisions that benefit you but harm others.

To illustrate, here’s an example. Let’s say that you were on a desert island with one other person. There are two coconuts to eat.

If you’re self-centered, you are thinking about your needs and how to meet them. You may not be thinking about the other person at all, even if you are thinking you’d like to eat both coconuts.

Once you’ve decided to actually eat both coconuts and leave the other person with nothing, that’s selfish. It’s actual behavior that hurts others.

This is all coming to me as I write this, so hopefully I’ll come to a point here!

So both narcissism and self-improvement come from a self-focus. But I think it’s clear that narcissism requires a much greater degree of self-focus than self-improvement.

It’s normal and healthy to want to improve yourself. Self-improvement leads to many practical benefits in life. I choose to focus on it to a great extent in my own life, both because I’d like the tangible benefits it can lead to, but also because improving myself feels like a good way to live my life. Meaning that it’s the process of self-improvement rather than what that improvement can do for me that is appealing.

For example, I enjoy reading history books and learning various things about the state of the world. This is knowledge that is unlikely to have a direct impact on my life, but I still feel improved in having learned it.

In contrast to self-improvement, I think narcissism requires a very unhealthy level of self-focus. It requires you to be focused on yourself constantly, and almost to be enamored with yourself. And just like when you’re enamored with somebody else, it blinds you to flaws.

Narcissists typically have massive blind spots where they don’t recognize their own flaws. That’s obviously quite problematic for any real self-improvement, but also just generally has very practical downsides.

One could argue that narcissists also tend to have a fairly fragile ego, and so perhaps they are willfully blind to their own flaws because they can’t accept that there are any. They can’t function unless they trick themselves into believing they are the best at everything.

It wasn’t until well into adulthood that I had an additional, related epiphany. This could be an entire other post by itself, but it’s still worth mentioning.

Insecurity, even (and perhaps especially) extreme insecurity, is often a form of self-centeredness. I didn’t realize it until witnessing with my own eyes people who were extremely insecure and sad later become happy but also completely selfish.

Again, it requires a degree of self-focus beyond what is healthy. If you are always looking inward, it’s easy to find and then focus on flaws. If you’re very self-centered but unhappy, it will be apparent to everyone around you that you are insecure.

But what they don’t realize is that the same self-focus won’t go away if you are happy. You’re still going to focus on yourself and be selfish to the detriment of those around you.

Back to the original question, I want to pose an example and use that to figure out some answers.

Take weight training / bodybuilding for example. This is an area where I think the line between narcissism and self-improvement can get very difficult to identify.

Building muscle is good for you. It keeps you healthy, it helps prevent injury especially in old age, it increases your metabolism, it makes you more attractive, and can certainly increase your self-confidence, too.

So is it a valid form of self-improvement? Of course!

But now picture somebody who has gotten into incredible shape, and spends an hour every day looking in the mirror, admiring his own body. That certainly doesn’t sound healthy, does it?

But now imagine a scenario where somebody used to be quite overweight and is now looking in the mirror and feeling proud of what they’ve accomplished. That can’t be narcissism, can it?

Now you see how thin the line is.

I don’t really know that I’m any closer to an answer on this than I was before.

I guess in general, degree is the most important thing. Having a bit of self-focus and working to make meaningful improvements in yourself and in your life while retaining a healthy perspective of yourself is just regular self-improvement.

If it becomes extreme to the point where you are sacrificing others or even other parts of yourself and causing problems in your pursuit of improvement, it might be narcissism. Especially if you have an inflated and unreasonable self-image.

I guess my conclusion is that there really is a “self-focus” slider for everyone’s personality. As long as you keep empathy and self-awareness high, you can have a relatively high degree of self-focus that will lead to positive growth.

Without high empathy and with low self-awareness, a high degree of self-focus can lead to narcissism.

Unfortunately, since it seems that most personality traits of this nature are relatively static, it might be hard to do much about it even if you find you have a problem. Which tracks with reality, since narcissism seems to be lifelong.

But still, you can always do your best to maximize empathy and also recognize these things in others.

And that’s it. This was quite the rant, but I still feel like I had some interesting thoughts there that might be worth exploring in future posts.

Would I Go Back?

So the question today is: if I had the option to go back in time to, say, high school or college, would I do it? And if so, what would I do differently?

It’s something I’ve pondered many times. The answer to the first question is always, “yes”. But the second one is understandably harder to answer.

In essence, I feel that I’ve spent so much time since then on self-improvement. Successfully, I might add. I needed to grow so much to be able to get to where I am now.

Let’s assume that in this imagined scenario, all of the self-improvement I’ve done is lost, but I still remember everything so I know where I ended up, all of the improvement it took to get there, and what methods I used along the way.

In this case, the question then becomes: how can I fast-track the improvement in both myself and and my situation to get there more efficiently? And in the real, non-hypothetical world, how can I use those lessons to fast-track my current development?

I guess as a starting point, I should determine the positive things all of that development has led to. Upon self-reflection, I don’t think very much of it is really personality-based. Reading has taught me that personality-focused self-improvement efforts are generally not very effective and creating real change. I think it’s mostly because it’s difficult, if not impossible, to artificially alter your own personality.

The answer I keep coming back to is ‘habit’. I’ve developed good habits that have enabled any success I’ve had and generally explain all of the parts of myself that I feel are improved over what they were in my younger days.

Sure, my knowledge is greatly increased in a huge variety of areas. Some of that is just experience which comes no matter what. But perhaps an even larger portion has come from reading non-fiction books, which is a habit I’ve cultivated over the course of years.

Another large chunk comes from intentionally studying and practicing certain topics and fields.

And yes, I’m much more “mature”, but many elements of what make up maturity have been developed through intentional effort. It seems evident to me that not everyone develops much emotional intelligence beyond college.

While it’s hard to judge myself in terms of how I compare to others in this area, I can say without a doubt that my emotional intelligence is worlds better than it was in college. And that has come through habits like really listening to people, looking for subtle clues about how people are feeling, and generally putting effort towards real empathy.

I think the biggest thing I would do to improve more rapidly would be to immediately acknowledge that I had a long way to go and that immediate, deliberate, and constant improvement was necessary. I wouldn’t say that I thought I didn’t need any improvement, but I also wouldn’t say that I recognized the need to put a great deal of effort into improving either.

So that’s what I would do. Acknowledge what’s needed, recognize my own deficiencies, and then put consistent, deliberate effort in towards improving them.

Something tells me I can apply those same lessons to myself right now, too. I’m certainly more focused on improving myself now, which is great, but I’m sure more can be done.

It might be worth it to really dig deep and outline the areas in which I really want to focus now. It might even help to imagine what I’d like things to be like down the road, and try to figure out how I can get there.

Perhaps that’s a good topic for a future post.

If I Won the Lottery: How Would I Grow the Business?

I decided to do a little thought experiment here. Let’s assume I won the lottery, and I decided that one of the ways I wanted to spend my time was to keep running the business, and to use that money to help it grow.

How would I go about it?

I figure that I might come out of this exercise thinking, “well… I could do many of those things now!”

So what would I do?

Money would be no object, so I’d probably focus on things that are expensive but might ultimately pay off greatly, even if it meant losing money in the short-term.

Hiring would probably make sense. I’d probably hire a team of people to grow the business quickly. That would likely include a marketing director, sales people, an operations person, and several web developers and designers. I would focus on sales and marketing first, and then once I had enough new clients coming in, I would hire the rest.

I would focus on putting systems in place to make sure everything is consistent across the organization. I would probably hire someone for that, too.

But what if I wanted to remain inconspicuous and instead focus on more organic growth that doesn’t require investing in a huge team?

I would probably just start spending a ton on advertising. I’d sink huge sums into Adwords and Facebook ads, possibly Linkedin. Those would be easy ways to turn large amounts of cash into clients.

Because I wouldn’t really care about the ROI, I wouldn’t need to put much effort into them. I could just create ads of minimal quality and spend so much on them that they work no matter what.

So what’s stopping me now?

Obviously I can’t afford to just throw unlimited money at ads and remain indifferent to the outcome. I would need to put much more thought into them and be more careful.

But still: I can certainly try them!

Again, I know that if my acquisition cost is under something like $250 per client, I should generally be profitable in the first year. And with that in mind, I should put large amounts of money into anything that ends up being more cost-effective than that.

At the very least, I feel like this exercise makes it clear to me that I need to go out and try some things. Maybe most of them don’t work at all, but it’s still worth it to try. If I find something that does work, I can focus heavily on that.