Small Business 'Toxic Overload.' Does your business need 'fluffy socks'or a different kind of help?

Yesterday, I watched a very great reel about how one family reduced the ‘toxic overload’ in their home.

One key step was asking everyone to leave their shoes at the door. In the hall, they had arranged a big basket of fluffy socks, for anyone who didn’t want to go barefoot...

This made me stop and think.

The health of your home aside for a minute – what level of 'toxic overload' are we allowing in our businesses?

No, I’m not talking about giving your staff and clients fluffy socks before they enter the conference room. Neither am I qualified to tell you how to keep your offices chemically safe environments...

Here, I’m referring to the aspects of the day to day running of your business that are near-enough destroying any productive time and mental capacity you should be investing in growth activity.

See, the problem with with any 'toxic load' is that:

• it inhibits healing;

• it accelerates ageing (i.e. moving towards death!);

• it increases risk of disease.

A toxic load prohibits growth.

I’m all for keeping a clean home and reducing toxins through my choice of natural alternatives, keeping the world’s rot as far at bay as possible. I may even introduce fluffy socks.

However, a toxic overload within my business will nullify all other positive input.

It will most certainly undermine the physical benefits of an aesthetically pleasing and clean-air zone space! More so, it will silently and maliciously erode our mental peace, clear direction and an ability to take progressive action; daily clouding clarity on how to achieve our visionary goals.

Don’t get me wrong – every business will struggle with pressure periods – the stages of growth bring with them adjustments and shifts in roles, expectations, activity, etc. and some of these can feel like the wrong kind of overload, for a season.

The difference is stagnation.

If your company - whether a small business or a entrepreneurial venture - is not moving and despite your awareness of this, you just don’t have time to make any significant changes, you should really consider a 'therapeutic and detoxifying cleanse'... I don't mean green tea...

So, what ‘fluffy socks and natural cleaning products’ will you introduce into your business?

What does decontamination look like in your circumstance?

Do you have sure methods to alleviate whatever excess ‘junk’ comes pouring through your ‘door’ each day?

Hang on a second. Don't just look to hire another 'you'. As Michael Gerber expresses in his 'E-Myth Revisited' bestseller, handing all that you don’t have time or headspace for, to ‘another you’, will not solve the problem.

In fact, if we stick with the toxic load analogy, it really just means that you’ve had a really good shower but kept all of your dirty clothes, shoes and radioactive residue, in the house.

So, what would a genuine solution look like?

An understandable level of frustration we encounter, with many our clients, is the suggestion of the implementation of systems and processes.

In fact, it generally provokes pure irritation.

For a business owner who’s been ‘at this for a while’, they have spent an incredible amount of time and other resources establishing:

foundational processes,

countless procedures,

multiple checklists,

time-saving methodologies,

positive culture,

and the list goes on.

So, for any ‘outisder’ to waltz in and propose more of the same, just seems redundant.

But here’s the thing.

When you reach a certain level of toxicity in your body, where your skin breaks out into rashes or worse; where you have pain through your joints and your organs ache randomly; when the symptoms of your body’s stress start to multiply… it doesn’t matter how many smoothies you’ve made from scratch over the last 30 years.

It doesn’t matter how many vitamins you take by the handful, and it doesn’t matter if you choose lemon and bicarb on your pots rather than dish washing soap.

You see the signs of toxic poisoning quite early on – in our western culture, we tend to put a steroid cream on it, or cut out caffeine for a couple of months.

In business, too, we see the signs of building strain on our resources (people included) and on ourselves, long before the business collapses in a heap! A training course or webinar will not cut it. A different kind of help is needed.

The best solution is always to catch it early.

"When you are running a business, there is a constant need to reinvent oneself. One should have the foresight to stay ahead in times of rapid change and rid ourselves of stickiness in any form in the business." - Shiv Nadar

Aggressive and calculated elimination of stressors is much better when you have the strength and foresight to manage it, than when you’re burned out mentally and physically and can’t see the wood for the trees (we had to bring trees in here somewhere!).

With small business overload help, it stands to reason that seeking support from outside your area of simmering stress to help delineate a route - a course of action that will change your business trajectory, from the inside out. The idea is to rapidly shed excess junk and move your business into a 'healthy living' phase.

Also, just for fun, we compiled a list of the best houseplants to keep in your office...to help with actual toxins...😉