After asking one of my partners to leave I was left with a huge void in my life and business. I knew it would create a ton of work and many sleepless nights but I finally concluded that the longer I allowed things to last… the deeper the hole I would dig. It was very unfortunate that I had to ask him to leave because I truly believe he is a cool guy and also very talented (as long as you DON’T have any kind of business ties with him). But he was not interested in helping me or my studio succeed and was only interested in learning what he could so he could help himself. I’ve learned that I HAVE to stop being so nice (some people would say naive) to people who are down and out and could use a little jump start. I always get myself into bad situations where I end up giving and giving and… but never receiving.
Truth is… I will always be nice and will always try to help where I can. I’ll just be a bit more careful and not be so naive. I’ll also make sure that everything is well communicated. At the first sign of trouble, I will be sure to throw a flag on the play and NOT proceed until we have come to resolution that is satisfactory for all parties.
My partner was also my “web developer” for my website. He got the basic structure in place and then sort of left me to figure the rest out. Our agreement was to have a COMPLETE website with full optimization in place in trade for the same value in shared lease expenses. However, he only got the basic structure in place and left me to figure everything else out. And… I have (had) NO CLUE nor did I have the time to learn! He sort of dropped everything so he could learn MY work and started to be a competitor in my own studio! So… I asked him to leave and then i was completely abandoned on my website. Talk about feeling lost and isolated with no hope… But I have never been one to quit or accept defeat.
I spent many sleepless nights and tons of aggravation but it seems I have finally prevailed. I HAVE learned how to develop and improve my website and I now have it pretty much nailed down. I feel so liberated now. I mean, it set me back a couple of months but hey… it could have been much worse and now I am a stronger & more knowledgeable person because of it. I see it as a blessing in disguise. I am actually glad all of this happened.
Throughout my life I have had several experiences that have set me back quite a bit but my “never give up” attitude combined with my will to learn has always helped me prevail and be much better off than before my set backs. These experiences have only made me a stronger person who is more confident in tough situations.
My website is back online, and it is going to be better because now I KNOW how to do the things I want to do with it and I don’t have to wait forever for someone to “decide” to work on it. I felt that I did not have the time to learn how to do it myself but it appears that I did not have the NOT to learn how to do it.
The moral of my story is… never rely on others to do what you KNOW you should just do yourself. Also, mutually beneficial business relationships are supposed to be “mutually beneficial”. In business… it’s good to make great friends from great business instead of bad business from good friends.
