How are you supposed to run your business, keep customers coming in the door, manage employees, teach classes, and find time to work on your business?

There are only 24 hours in the day. How are you supposed to run your business, keep customers coming in the door, manage employees, teach classes, and find time to work on your business?

For the past 2 weeks, I have struggled to keep up with this newsletter. For a number of reasons, I didn't make the time to put together my usual newsletter.

Life happens and we need strategies to help us stay on track with our goals. What can you count on when motivation wanes, and progress is bleak?

The #1 strategy to help you stay on track is to have an accountability group of your peers.

Here is how I apply this principle to my life.

Every Friday, I check in with a group of dads. We air our challenges and our wins from the week. We listen and hold space for each other. We remind each other that marriage, kids and work all present difficult challenges.

Your business is no different. You are spinning a lot of plates and that is hard. It's inevitable that your business and life will through you curve balls. The important thing is to give yourself grace and continue on.

The hardest part of anything new is getting started.

I am most successful when I know what the first step is. For this newsletter, that is having a broad topic and 2-3 points to write about. A blank screen without a topic sets me up for failure.

A month ago, I started using Asana (which is a project management software) to organize my personal life. Here is how I use it:

• When I think of newsletter topic I create a task in Asana with that topic.

  • I can then choose from this list when it is time to write.

  • I can also add notes to a task when I think of specific points to make related to a topic.

Make the 1st step as small and as easy as possible.

For this newsletter, my first step is to open my newsletter software and make a copy of last week's newsletter. I always start with last week's newsletter so that I don't stare at a blank page and I have a template to work from.

Make the goal bite sized.

In my case, my goal is to write the title. I chose this because writing the title gets me started and momentum keeps me going.

At the end of the week, I want to check in with my dads group and share that this newsletter is growing and I am loving it.

We, as humans, are inherently bad at keeping commitments we make with ourselves. We are better at keeping commitments we make with our peers.

Reply to this email if you would be interested in joining a small group of like-minded dive shop owners for weekly check ins and monthly calls.

Of the categories listed below or others not listed, please reply to this email and let me know where you as an owner and your store need the most help? For context, if you could pay $250, $500, or even $1000 per month and have anything done for you or your store, what would that activity be? Would it be marketing? Would it be a new website and CRM? Would you want help with business operations (phone calls, scheduling, etc)?