Life as an entrepreneur can often feel lonely.
Being a solopreneur or small business owner in the meetings and events industry is a wonderful experience. However, with all the stress and challenges entrepreneurs face, they often find themselves alone, with no one to share their wins, doubts, and fears with.
In this episode, Eric reads an excerpt from the book he is currently reading and shares some valuable tips to help entrepreneurs avoid loneliness.
Digital Nomads
Unlike traditional nomads who rely on each other, digital nomads often go it alone. In his book 4000 Weeks, Oliver Burkeman explains that digital nomads, despite the appealing lifestyle, can feel lonely. They travel the world but miss the shared routines that create strong relationships.
Remote Work
Without casual, in-person conversations, those who work remotely miss out on spontaneous connections. So entrepreneurs need to be intentional about meeting others and making space for interaction.
Build a Circle of Advisors or Join a Community
One solution is to create a board of advisors for your business. They should be people you trust and respect, and those you can share authentically with about the highs and lows of your business. You can also join a community of other entrepreneurs. The key is to make it a regular habit because if it is not on your calendar, it is unlikely to happen.
Reconnect With What Matters
Take time to pause and reflect on what truly matters to you. Ensure your daily actions are moving your business in the right direction, and keep your long-term vision in focus to remain grounded.
Stay Flexible and Open
Growth requires curiosity and adaptability. As a business owner, you must be willing to try new tools, adopt new services, and explore different ways of working.
Keep Your Vision in Focus
Regularly check in with your long-term goals. Stay open to learning and be willing to embrace new tools, services, and ways of working that support that vision.
Bio: Eric Rozenberg
Eric is a business builder and the founder of Event Business Formula, the only platform exclusively dedicated to helping and supporting business owners in the Meetings & Events Industry. He has helped thousands of entrepreneurs grow and manage their businesses better.
For two decades in a previous life, Eric has consulted with Fortune 500 companies and produced award-winning sales meetings, incentive trips, product launches, and conferences in more than 50 countries across diverse industries.
His podcast “The Business of Meetings” is the first podcast in the Meetings & Events Industry dedicated to business owners and the largest source of free information, with over 240 episodes and fabulous guests.
His first book, Meeting at C-Level, is the first book on the « Why? » of a meeting. It has been endorsed by 20 of the most influential leaders from the corporate and association worlds.
His second book, Before It’s Too Late, A Love Letter to My Daughters and America, is a story of grit, perseverance, and courage. It describes why and how he and his wife brought their daughters to America and why it is the greatest country on Earth.
Eric was the first European to serve as Chairman of the International Board of Meeting Professionals International (MPI).
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Book Mentioned:Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
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The less you are involved in the business, the higher the value will be.”
Eric Rozenberg
Full transcript of episode 281 of The Business of Meetings podcast, a solo episode with Eric Rozenberg. Lightly edited for readability.
Eric Rozenberg: Hello and welcome to the Business of Meetings podcast. I’m your host, Eric Rozenberg.
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of helping businesses in the meetings and event industry grow and succeed. And I’m excited to share that experience with you. If you feel alone and overwhelmed, and if you’re looking to take your business to the next level, improve your strategy and sales, and connect with like-minded professionals, you are in the right place. I invite you to visit EventBusinessFormula.com and join our community of event business owners dedicated to exponential growth. Now let’s dive into today’s episode.
Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Business of Meetings podcast. Today I want to address the loneliness of being an entrepreneur. Many of us are solopreneurs, small business owners in the meetings and event industry. And truth to be told, it’s a wonderful, probably the greatest, industry of all. And being an entrepreneur, with all the stress and all the change and everything, we find ourselves very often alone and not being able to talk to people, to share our wins, but also to share our fears, to share the question we have.
And I want to read to you an extract of a book that I’m reading now and then give you some hints of what you can do to overcome that loneliness. This is a book called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, written by Oliver Burkeman, that I just finished reading. And page 189, he’s talking about the digital nomads. And I think it’s very interesting what he’s saying about the digital nomads. And he says that “digital nomads is a misnomer and an instructive one. Traditional nomads are not solitary wanderers who just happen to lack laptops. They’re intensely group-focused people who, if anything, have less personal freedom than members of settled tribes, since their survival depends on their working together successfully.”
I think that here is a very interesting concept of a tribe. When I’m talking about community, when I’m talking about having a board of advisors, we’re talking about having people that you can talk to, they can share your question with, that is absolutely essential.
And then he continues saying, writing rather, “And in their more candid moments, digital nomads will admit that the chief problem with their lifestyle is the acute loneliness. ‘Last year I visited 17 countries. This year will visit 10,’ the American author Mark Manson wrote, back when he was still a nomad himself. ‘Last year I saw the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, and Machu Picchu in the span of 3 months. But I did all this alone.’ A fellow wanderer, Manson learned, burst into tears in a small suburb in Japan, watching families ride their bikes together in a park, as it dawned on him that his supposed freedom, his theoretical ability to do whatever he wanted whenever he chose, had put such ordinary pleasure beyond reach.”
And that, if I may comment as well, is another writing, if you want, to make me think of the importance of having your 10-year vision, knowing what’s important for you, knowing about your values and what matter in life. And that is something that, when you know about it, it’s obviously most helpful to continue what you’re doing and also surround yourself with the right people.
And then the author here, Oliver Burkeman, continues and finish. I’m going to finish reading this page. “Now, the point, to be clear, isn’t that freelancing or long-term travel, let alone family-friendly workplace policies, are intrinsically bad things. It’s that they come with an unavoidable flip side. Every gain in personal temporal freedom entails a corresponding loss in how easy it is to coordinate your time with other people’s. The digital nomad’s lifestyle lacks the shared rhythms required for deep relationships to take root. For the rest of us, likewise, more freedom to choose when and where you work makes it harder to forge connections through your job, as well as less likely you’ll be free to socialize when your friends are.”
It’s a lot to unpack, because I also believe in those lines. We’re talking about remote work. We’re talking about the fact that companies or corporation are trying now to get everybody’s back in the office, or at least in a hybrid way. But that’s really the point as well. Besides the fact that having everyone around the water cooler entails conversation that would never happen otherwise, it’s also the fact that when you are working on your own or when you’re working remote, you don’t have this interaction with people. Which is for me why it’s very important that when you are actually starting your business and you’re running your business and working a lot from home, you need to block time in your calendar to get out, to meet people, to have lunch with people, to do sports, to volunteer, whatever it is. So you have the part which is the professional part, where you need to be able to synchronize with your colleagues, but also the other part, which is the social part.
So what can we do as business owner to overcome this loneliness that is typical of any entrepreneur? Well, there’s several solutions there. The first one is creating your own board of advisors. Surround yourself with people that you respect, that respect you, that you know you can get naked in front with all your challenge in the business, and that will tell you exactly what they think to genuinely help you. And join a group, a community, join a group of entrepreneurs, but block the time and make sure that you do on a regular basis. If not, it’s never going to happen.
And also, I would say, pause, reflect on what matters to you. Share those ideas with the people that you like, the people you respect, and always come back to your long-term vision and ask yourself, is what you’re doing today somehow helping you continue in the direction that you have chosen for yourself and for your business? And at the end of the day, be open to learn, to integrate new technology, to integrate new services, to integrate new ways of doing business. And that’s the beauty of it. Our world is changing.
Being an entrepreneur is probably, if not the, one of the most exciting thing in the world, because despite everything I’ve read and everything I’ve shared with you today, there is still the main reason why we’re doing this: we are somehow controlling our time in a little better way than if we were working for anybody else. Then the freedom depends as well on how you structure that, how you surround yourself, and how you’re making sure that your business is growing with the team around you. As I always said, the less you are involved in the business, the higher the value will be. That takes time, but at least you start with defining that vision and working on it.
Hope this is helpful. If you have any question, I can help you with your business. Don’t hesitate to reach out, and I’ll see you at the next industry conference or on the next podcast. Have a great day.
Thank you for tuning in to the Business of Meetings podcast. I hope you found today’s episode valuable. If you enjoyed the show, the most important thing you can do is leave a review and share it with your colleagues. It really helps spread the word. I truly appreciate your support. And if you’re ready to take your business to the next level, don’t forget to visit EventBusinessFormula.com to learn more about how we are helping event business owners like you. Thanks again for listening, and I’ll see you next time.
