Making friends with other entrepreneurs early on can be more fun, plus working with others who understand the challenges you face might even give you some extra runway. This Tales of a Solopreneur installment discusses some additional benefits that you can gain from teaming up with other entrepreneurs, opportunities for making connections, and communication platforms you can use to stay in touch.

Connecting the A-B-C Way

Many solopreneurs already have a built-in self-starter gene which sparked their entrepreneurship in the first place. But two heads are often better than one, and everyone can use a cheerleading section occasionally. These A-B-Cs are additional advantages you can gain from forming new friendships with other entrepreneurs:

Accountability

First, no matter how good (or not) you might be at strategizing and scheduling tasks, there’s something magical about declaring to someone other than yourself what you need, or want, to complete. Even if it takes me longer than I’d like to complete and mark a task off my list, I find that I finish the items I’ve declared to my confidantes quicker than I would otherwise; often because it’s more fun to share my wins than my setbacks. But setbacks are part of the process, so having friends who will (gently) check in on me and my progress is worth its weight in gold. It also makes it easier to restart when I get sidetracked or occasionally derailed.

Brainstorming Beyond Your Bubble

Next, there aren’t enough hours in the day for you to be all the things to all the people. Like homing in on your ideal client or your niche audience, it’s also helpful to focus your time on the skills and knowledge areas that will provide you the maximum benefits. But there will be other areas you aren’t skilled in that you will either need to learn or hire someone else to take care of for you, and you might not be able to afford to hire experts yet.

Dividing and conquering is a great way to leverage your skills and strengths and avoid getting stuck in quicksand trying to learn and implement required tasks that you don’t understand, like doing, or have time to do. Sharing knowledge with other entrepreneurs, especially when they are skilled in areas that are your gaps, can be a win-win. For example, if you love setting up systems but are petrified of marketing, and a member of your Team Solopreneur is a whiz at branding but doesn’t know which technology to use to run a back office or how to manage data, then swapping expertise can move you both forward exponentially. 

Also, brainstorming with others about where they focus their time or what resources are on their wish list introduces you to other ideas, strategies, technologies, trends, and opportunities that you might never discover otherwise.

Check-ins

Finally, sometimes we get so deep into our rabbit holes that we lose the forest through the trees. We may think we know where we’re headed; but a gut check can help save us lots of time, money, and emotional energy if we are way off the mark. Bouncing your ideas off someone else who has experience in the area, has strong strategic skills, or is just an independent thinker who isn’t tied emotionally to your idea the way you are can be priceless. And if you choose to move forward with your idea, even if you’ve received a thumbs down, you will likely have some additional data points to use in your planning.

Making Connections Is Easier Than You Think

There are many opportunities for making connections with other entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs and their businesses come in all shapes and sizes; so, challenge yourself to think broadly and meet people with different product and service focuses, client demographics, skills, interests, and goals. For example, my Team Solopreneur includes writers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and knitters; and I learn completely different and wonderful things from each of them. 

Some of the best places I’ve made my connections include:

• Classes – Whether classes are online or in person, there are usually opportunities to meet other students in either breakout sessions, live Q&As, group assignments, or closed social media groups or networks. Also, some classes take it to the next level and recommend (or even facilitate) teaming up with other students to create accountability pods. If you get the chance, take advantage of this opportunity. Although you may feel out of your comfort zone at the beginning and setting up your pod may take a little extra time, you may end up with friends and confidantes that last long after the class is over.  

• Private Membership Communities – Some teachers and coaches run private membership communities focused on a specific topic and/or client demographic that they offer only to their students and clients. Often these types of communities provide the ability to meet many individuals at once along with additional opportunities for smaller group interactions. 

Make a list of the activities you already participate in (or plan to participate in the short-term), identify what community-related activities they offer, and pick one to start with.

Choosing Your Communications Platform is Key

Connecting should be fun, but sometimes our typical technology options cause challenges that make it feel like a chore; so, make sure you select a communications platform that will work best for you and the other members of your Team Solopreneur based on your preferences. 

Although email, texts, and social media groups are always possibilities for staying in touch with new friends, they are my least favorite solutions to use. Email can feel like snail mail for real-time (or close to real-time) contact as compared to texts these days; but I don’t always have time to respond to texts, and it’s too easy for them to fall through the cracks. I also find going on social media to check group messages can be too time-consuming with all the other shiny objects on social media.

My favorite way to keep in touch is using instant messaging platforms, such as Discord or Slack. Both platforms have mobile capabilities, allow you to invite friends, set up different threads, organize topics and groups so it’s easier to focus your attention, and make it easy to jump to the point in each thread where you left off. Plus, both have free plan options. 

Next Up

I’ve been splitting my focus lately between progressing on my book coaching certification program and learning new skills in an online class, both of which will keep me busy for the foreseeable future. Lucky for me, both provide community opportunities to help keep me on track.

I hope you are ready to set up your own Team Solopreneur if you don’t already have one. But just remember…starting out slow is fine since you only need one new friend to start benefiting from your A-B-Cs.

Tell us in the comments: Do you have a Team Solopreneur? 

Richelle Lyn is a compensation & benefits attorney and HR executive, who now spends her days focused on the writing life. Her favorite fiction reads involve leading ladies who push boundaries and conquer their fears while preferably digging for secrets, learning magic, and/or saving the World. She’s also a fan of non-fiction reads focused on personal growth and transformation. She loves her tea hot and her coffee iced. She calls South Florida home, but her favorite place to be is on a trip. You can check her out on Instagram and Twitter.

The post Tales of a Solopreneur: Teaming Up with Other Solopreneurs appeared first on DIY MFA.

Backing things up…The solo part of solopreneur is a double-sided coin. Despite its many advantages, there are also some challenges to working alone, including stricter limits on time and resources when delegation isn’t an option. There will be times when you choose to slow down or go into a full-stop hiatus (think vacations, holidays, and summer breaks) to rest and recharge, so you can bounce back stronger. 

Unfortunately, there will also be times when life happens to you, and you are hit by a curveball that forces you to turn your attention to something even more important or pressing than your business. I’ve learned that it’s not if, but when, the latter will happen; so it’s helpful to be prepared. 

Although the end of the school year arrives the same time each year, it always seems to sneak up on me. The house buzzes with activity from morning to night as the school schedule is abandoned. A change in schedule can cause a ripple effect for solopreneurs, especially for those who work from home. It often starts with an interruption in targeted completion dates; but it can quickly spiral into loss of momentum and then motivation resulting in mind games that open the door to self-defeat. 

But being off schedule, or off all together, for a little while doesn’t have to knock you off track; and in fact, it can be a game-changer long-term if you use the time to maintain a positive mindset and keep challenging yourself.

Building Brain Power: The Under-rated Business Asset

I believe your brain is one of your most important business assets even though you’ll never see it listed on a balance sheet. Being a solopreneur is not for the faint of heart, and you need your brain to show up at the station on time and stick around for the full adventure. 

Sometimes your brain can be your greatest supporter; but it can also be your worst enemy, often when you’re down on yourself or your situation. It’s easy to slip into the mindset that nothing is being done to move your business forward if you aren’t logging hours in daily, or at 

least on a consistent basis. But this doesn’t have to be the case because building a business requires more than just completing a series of tasks listed on a spreadsheet or a course handout.

I believe aspects of a small business’ growth will always be tied to the solopreneur’s personal growth, and it’s important for solopreneurs to actively seek learning opportunities in areas such as effective brainstorming, optimizing strategic goal setting and tracking, increasing efficiency and productivity, discovering new perspectives and new ways to do things, and learning how to pivot. Being successful in each of these areas requires a solopreneur’s mental focus—and the greater the focus, the higher the probability for a successful outcome.

You can set up back-office systems to keep your business running while you’re away from your computer. But establishing and growing your business requires much more of you and your brainpower than business maintenance does. 

Despite my dreams of being able to split myself in half to get double the work done, I’ve learned the hard way that my brainpower is not a bottomless well, it requires both positive generation and constant protection, and it’s much harder to restart from a stop position than if I keep things moving along at a slower speed. Plus, when my brain has idle time, that’s when the weight of the world feels heaviest on my shoulders and when impostor syndrome starts knocking. 

For all of these reasons, I make it a priority to learn new things year-round that generate more brain power. I also preserve my brain power during more difficult hiatuses when my brain is susceptible to draining but distractions are welcome. 

This approach helps me keep my mental focus and my business development moving forward whether I’m working at maximum speed on projects or I’m just managing the musts and have put a pause on the nice to haves. 

Plus, life interruptions aren’t as destabling since I always have a plan in place to keep my mind engaged until I can kick back into a higher gear. And just as important, I’ve figured out how to fold this plan into my daily life without carving out extra time.

Designing My Brain Power Builder

The three pillars of my Brain Power Builder are: mindset, habits, and creativity. 

Focusing on a positive and open mindset helps me to create targets and move toward them without being defeated when I face challenges. Developing better habits helps me do more with less. Sparking creativity helps me stay resilient and responsive and think out of the box. 

I ebb and flow between these three pillars depending on how I’m feeling, what’s been going on in my life, and what’s on my mind (or not on my mind); but they all remain on my radar even if I’m not actively working on them since an area that was under control last month might be out of sync by next month. 

There’s a wealth of knowledge available both for free and for purchase for each of these pillars in multiple formats to match learning styles and situations. I’m an advocate of literary citizenship, and I still love to hold a book in my hands and mark important pages; so I purchase my books in print. 

But I also use my library card to check out the audiobook version, so I can listen to the book on my phone while I’m doing household tasks, exercising, driving, or during my daily knitting sessions (which also help me spark my creativity). Relying on audio formats has become a game-changer for me since I can squeeze in learning while multitasking, and I don’t have to carve out separate time that feels selfish. Plus, I love listening to authors read their own books since it feels like I’m taking their master class. I also listen to related podcasts, videos, webinars, and online classes. 

Here are some of my recent reads and listens that I recommend:

Mindset

• The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
•  Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
• GrowthDay, which is an online subscription platform providing access to personal development master classes

Habits

• The High 5 Habit by Mel Robbins
• Atomic Habits by James Clear
• High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard

Creativity 

• The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It For Life by Twyla Tharp
• Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace. (See Virtual Writers Sabbatical: How Creativity, Inc. Inspired Me.)

Building Your Brain Power Plan

Are you ready to prioritize your brain power, so your mind will support you and your business long-term? If so, follow these easy steps to create your own Brain Power Builder:

• Write down a bullet list of the pillars you want to focus on, or borrow my list (mindset, habits, and creativity) if you’re not sure where to start.
• Star the bullets you’re most interested in learning about or think will help you move the needle the most.
• Prioritize your starred items, select your top three, and rank them as pillars 1, 2, and 3.
• Write down a list of three things you can do for each of your three pillars.
• Select an item from pillar 1 and get started, working your way down the list as you go. 
• Keep notes or journal entries on important takeaways or action items. 
• If your preference is to focus on one thing from start to finish before starting something new, then I recommend selecting the next item at the same time you reshelve your book or check your loan back into the library; so you will keep your momentum going.
• Check off each item you complete and record the date.
• Add to the list as you discover new ideas. 
• Periodically revisit your pillars to see if they need updating.

Building your brain power can lead to epiphanies that spark both your momentum and motivation, so don’t forget to celebrate your wins when you apply something you’ve learned to your business or your personal life.

Next Up, Summertime Reading

I have a short list of business formation items that I plan to work on in July and August, but I’ve opted to slow down during summer break to rest and recharge, focus on family, and have some fun. But I’ve updated my Brain Power Builder to make sure I maximize my free time and listening opportunities to keep focusing on mindset, habits, and creativity. 

My current read is We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rodgers, and I was immediately hooked by her introduction. The other brain power books I have queued up include: 

• Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead by Tara Mohr
• Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In a Distracted World by Cal Newport
• How to Live a Good Life and Sparked, both by Jonathan Fields
• A Curious Mind: The Secret To a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman
• The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield
• The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

I hope you have some exciting summer plans for yourself that will help you recharge and get ready for the second half of the year. And don’t forget your summer reading list at home…

Tell us in the comments: What do you read to build your brain power?

Richelle Lyn is a compensation & benefits attorney and HR executive, who now spends her days focused on the writing life. Her favorite fiction reads involve leading ladies who push boundaries and conquer their fears while preferably digging for secrets, learning magic, and/or saving the World. She’s also a fan of non-fiction reads focused on personal growth and transformation. She loves her tea hot and her coffee iced. She calls South Florida home, but her favorite place to be is on a trip. You can check her out on Twitter and Instagram.

The post Tales of a Solopreneur: Building Your Brain Power appeared first on DIY MFA.