Beating the Lonely Entrepreneur Syndrome

Laurel Touby, who I've written about before (Mediabistro: Timeline to Success) built a multi-million dollar empire to counter the loneliness she felt as a freelance writer. She organized parties for journalists - other lonely people like her - and made a huge business out of it (Laurel's featured in this month's Inc. Magazine: "How I Did It").

Marci Alboher recently wrote a blog post about how it's so much better to have someone teach you things than to learn them by yourself (see My Technology Training Program). Business tasks (or anything, really) are definitely more fun if you're sharing them with someone else.

In addition to learning or companionship, I also need "peeps" for guidance and support. As a new entrepreneur I have to make decisions every day, and am faced with the prospect of taking actions that seem incredibly scary in my distorted mind. So aside from my weekly meetings with action partners (which I wrote about last week), I also check in every other day with my friend Andrew Deutsch (right).

Andrew has worked in sales for over twenty years (he also plays a mean jazz guitar and can shoot out jokes like it's open mike night at the Comedy Strip), and is now creating a training program for salespeople that he wants to "take on the road".

We help each other with the more general tasks of running our businesses, aka our "to do" lists. I've asked him for feedback on handling clients, and on venues for a workshop I'm giving next month. He patiently listens when I keep bringing up tasks (over and over again) that were supposed to have been completed (I'm happy to say I finally hired an accountant!).

In turn he's asked me to edit pitches, pick photos for his website and comment on his target market profile (I've also handled his occasional non-business-related dating dilemmas). My thinking can sometimes get faulty and I've been ready to toss out perfectly good ideas until he points out some benefit that I overlooked. And it's great to share my successes with someone I don't have to explain the whole story to.

Don Corleone had his consigliere, I have Andrew. Which is fortunate because I have a lot on my plate for this week, so I'm glad I don't have to do it alone!