In the online marketing space, we often hear people say that business should be “fun” all the time. But we need to talk about the distinction between enjoying what we do in our business and having fun.

I’m going to give you some tough love: sometimes you need to let your business be boring.

This concept of “business should be fun” is one that I’ve thought about a lot. There’s a lot of messaging in the online marketing space around how you should love your business and how your business should be fun. Hell, this is even one of my core values. But it needs to be nuanced. 

Sure, I talk about how getting up and working in my business seems like going and playing with my friends each day. And it does!

But that message permeates and ends up leading people to think that we should be having a great time in our business every moment of every day. So when we feel bored, we think that’s a sign that we’re not in the flow and we’re doing something wrong.

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The Difference Between Enjoying What You Do And Having “Fun”

Here’s the thing… enjoying what you do, liking your business, and having fun aren’t the same thing.

Your business is going to involve work, and it’s not always going to be easy. But you should still enjoy it. 

If you wake up every day and dread working on your business, that’s a problem. 

But if you’re building a business as a way to seek thrills, that’s also a problem.

You need to accept that your business is going to be “boring” sometimes and that’s okay.

If you’re not willing to let your business be boring, you risk creating other types of problems.

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The Challenge Of Being A “Multi-Passionate” Entrepreneur

I regularly hear people say, “I’m a multi-passionate entrepreneur, and I want to build a business around those passions.”

What this tends to be is someone pushing against the notion of niching and building a business around a specific niche.

I want to just tell you flat out that your business isn’t the only place you should be expressing your passions in life.

Some of your passions don’t go together, so it doesn’t make sense to put them together in a business. When you try to put these things together, you’re splitting your attention between completely different businesses. You’re serving different people with different solutions.

Instead, you really need to talk to one general group of people. You could have slight variations in that, but to build a successful business means you help a specific group of people.

The legal stuff and the business stuff side of my business are both serving online entrepreneurs. So, I’m able to serve the same people, and getting one client allows me to potentially sell on both sides of the business.

If you’re trying to serve different groups, you’re building multiple businesses and dividing your attention. If you split your attention, what happens is you never focus on building one of those businesses to completion.

When I say completion, I mean getting to the point that your business is going on its own. You can extricate yourself and it’s basically running on autopilot. In an online business, this is when you have teams and systems that allow you to step away.

Building multiple businesses at once will also confuse your people because you won’t be able to deliver a single coherent message. Your audience will be confused about what you’re trying to help them do, so they’ll go to someone else.

The solution here is that your business should not be the only outlet for your passion. You have to pick one niche for your business.

The Challenge Of Being A Constant “Tinkerer”

The second group of people that aren’t willing to let themselves be bored is what I call the “constant tinkerer.”

Confession: I’m kinda guilty of this one. Constant tinkering is something I struggle with.

Here’s what it looks like. You have a solution, and you put it out there, and immediately, if it doesn’t work, you start messing with stuff. For example, if you create a webinar and it doesn’t convert, you try something else, like a challenge. You’re constantly changing.

You need to allow enough time to get data to make a decision. If you put something out there and it doesn’t sell right away, that might mean you just haven’t given it enough time.

When you don’t have enough information, trying to tweak or tinker with anything in your launch, product, etc., is a mistake. You need to allow it to work itself out. You need to collect enough data to know whether it’ll work or not and to prevent you from changing the wrong thing.

The Challenge Of Constantly Having New Ideas

This is my biggest challenge. I constantly have new ideas. Almost every day that I go for a walk, I end up having a new idea. And to be clear, it’s not like I bring one idea to completion and then move on to the next thing. I just keep having new ideas without completing them.

If this sounds familiar, you’ll have to be willing to write those ideas down in an idea journal and let them sit so you can finish what you’re currently working on. 

Admittedly, I’m not great at this, but I have to be. If I’m not willing to sit on my ideas for a while, I won’t be able to recognize that some of them aren’t good. If I write them down and come back to them about them a week later, it’s easier to see what’s good and what’s not.

You have to be willing to put aside a new idea and stick with the ones you’re working on and improve them. Don’t move on to the next thing because you only have so many resources. If you’re constantly having new ideas and trying to implement those new ideas, it dilutes your activity.

Acting too quickly before you can tell if the idea is worth pursuing creates problems. Always chasing new ideas diverts your attention and doesn’t allow enough time for things to work.

How do you deal with constantly having new ideas? Here are a few things to try: 

• Find an outlet for your ideas that doesn’t involve changing something in your business.
• Create systems to keep up with your ideas
• Allow a cooling-off period for your ideas rather than acting on them immediately
• Avoid talking about every new idea with your team

Commit To Doing Fun Stuff And Also Allow Some Aspects To Be Boring

At the end of the day, whether it’s because you say you’re multi-passionate, you want to tinker with stuff, or you constantly come up with new ideas, fundamentally, you have to commit to yourself that you’re going to do fun stuff, but you’re also going to let your business be boring.

That’s what you have to do if you want to build a business that will be successful over the long term.

Be sure to join my free program, BADA$$ Online Marketing University (BOMU) where you’ll learn how to build an online business that you enjoy.

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