What does the end look like?

Does anyone know what happened to April? It was the end of March last time I wrote. How does time get away from me so fast? Spring is the busy time in my business and my life. It all kind of rolls in together and is often hard to tell where one part ends and the other part starts.

I had planned to get some feedback from you on the possibility of starting delivery charges. In all the years of delivering your printing I have never had a delivery charge. But, with gas starting to push $4 a gallon it has been on my mind. This week the media is saying that oil prices have dropped and gas prices should start dropping as well. So, for the moment I will leave the idea alone and continue with free delivery.

In June my daughter is graduating high school. I'm none too sure what happened to 18 years either! She has been working on a genealogy project for her US History class. I had to drag out the box of family photos to find some papers from my Dad's side of the family. Mixed in were photos of my kids when they were babies and toddlers. Then she had to interview my Dad about his life and what he remembered about my grandfather and great grandfather. Mix all this with some business reading and planning that I have been working on and I find that this Spring seems to have a theme running through it.

One of the best bits of business advice I have ever heard came to me in a book called "The Elite Entrepreneur" by Ephren W. Taylor. The author says not to start a business with a business plan (we all know what happens to plans), but to visualize what you want the very end of your business to look like. Does it have you selling the business for billions? Taking it public? Or simply and happily working out of your basement until you take your last breath? Businesses, like life, have a way of running out of control if you don't know where you are heading. A business will work you to death and not in a fun way if you don't keep it on track.

This is where life and business merge. One of the questions my daughter asked my Dad was "What do you want to be remembered for?". There was one of my ancestors that Wrenn could only find a name for, his son's name and where he died. Nothing between being born and dying other than having a son.

As my daughter is getting ready to start a life without her Mother Hen clucking around all the time, my advice to her will be....decide what you want your life to look like when you get to the end of it. Let that be your guide when all hell is breaking loose. The best laid plans blow apart. Decide what kind of person you want to be so when you have a HUGE decision to make there is a vision in front of you. Life and business require constant readjustments to stay on track. Sometimes the track disappears completely. But if you at least know what direction you are heading you can usually find your way back to the track or at least machete your way thru the jungle and make a new path to your goal.

As I have been working on a vision of what I want the end of my business to look like, am also in the process of some personal track shifting. In two more years, my son will be graduating high school. At least I will have my "advice" figured out for him. By then I will have been in full parental mode for 20 years. Even though I know you never stop being a parent, you do have to shift out of 3rd gear eventually. What do I want my life to look like after the kids leave. I have ruled out being the neighborhood cat lady, thanks to my dog!

So, when you get some daydreaming time what do you want the end of your "business" to look like? Heck, what do you want the end of this week or the month to look like?

Just in case I don't get back to this again until June... have a wonderful May!!
Christel