Short-Term Sacrifices
My prayer journal entry from April 8th, 2021
[Added notes and elaboration are italicized…]
Thursday, April 8th, 2021 4:06p
Jesus,
In the next three weeks, I’m going to be losing [team member] and [another team member] from the NS4L team. I’m debating… should I try to fill [team member’s] role at the very least or should I try to take it on myself? I would have to keep the shop open during business hours obviously, but I would have to miss Schaefer’s middle school soccer games, I’d have to miss networking events, and more. Let me know what I should do.
Jason Hurst [our real estate agent] is supposed to call me to discuss a counter offer [see the offer] on the property. Let us [me and the other party] come to an agreement on this property, LORD. Please.
I love you.
Collin
Being an entrepreneur and owning a business sounds freeing to most, but I believe many entrepreneurs would tell you that it is quite the opposite. In a lot of ways, you create your own prison. A place that demands your time and attention. It’s a child that is 100% dependent on you. ALL OF THE TIME.
The sacrifice is real. You’ll work triple the amount of hours. You’ll sacrifice so much time with your family. When someone on your team calls in sick, you push back everything on your calendar because now you have to step in and do their job. As soon as you finish their job at 5p, you start your work. Have a headache? Not feeling well? (Lol. Sorry.) You’re still going to work. Your team may call in sick, but you don’t have that privilege.
The list goes on and on…
Sure, the dream is to build something meaningful. Impactful. Community-building. That changes people’s lives for the better. You want to build a place that doesn’t need you to sustain or grow, but instead (hopefully) just glows a little brighter from your presence. A place where CEO simply means, Chief Encouragement Officer. You want to build a legacy so great that when you are dead and gone, all that’s left are incredible stories that people share about you.
Is it possible? Yes! I believe so, but one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard in entrepreneurship is, “If it were easy, everyone would do it!”
So, here I was. About to lose 2 more team members…
If you’ve followed along in my blog to this point, then you know that my transparency with my team about our financial position led to the majority of them leaving. Pre-Covid I think we were around 15 team members. At the time of this prayer journal entry in 2021, we had 8 team members + me… 4 of those were full-time... 2 of those were on their way out the door.
As the business owner, I had two options. Hire replacements or absorb the workload. Given our circumstances and current cash flow position, I felt the Lord press upon me to make the short-term sacrifice and absorb the workload. With these particular full-time team members leaving, I would be absorbing 100% of the managerial responsibility and 100% of the sales responsibility. It meant…
I’d have to be tied to the shop during business hours. Being a retail business, it meant no more business lunches. No more coffee meetings during business hours. It meant working 8a to 8p and having the storefront open to customers 10a to 5p.
I’d have to sacrifice time with my family and likely miss those soccer games on weekday afternoons.
I’d have to take a huge leap of faith. During a time when many were ill, I’d lean on the Lord for my health. I knew that as the only sales team member, if I got Covid, I would have to lock the showroom door until I was clear of it and able to come back. (Praise God, I would end up having some of my healthiest months of my entire life!)
Even though I didn’t know the Lord’s plan with the business at the time, these two team members (along with the others that already left), would play a significant role in improving the overall financial health of the company. Payroll is usually every business’s largest expense. It most certainly was for me and this was the Lord’s blessing in disguise.
Today, I often joke that through the radical transparency I had with my team about our financial circumstances, the Lord laid off my team because I wasn’t able (or willing) to. Instead, I was willing to let the ship sink. Through these transparent conversations, the team took it upon themselves to find new jobs and ultimately leave. It was a sad time, but today, I’m grateful for it.
Ultimately, this would start a season of rebuilding. A season of short-term sacrifices for what will (prayerfully) end up being long-term impact for God’s Kingdom.
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
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