From the trenches of Professional Services in a down economy 2

Mark this moment!

Thursday the 9th of April. This is a day to remember.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I put enjoyment, satisfaction, happiness ahead of money and business. A business partner and I had a significant amount of money on the table from a new client and we chose not to take it!

Given the circumstances (one of the senior managers of this new client warned us to “cover your ass in your contract” and “this is going to be very difficult for you.”), we turned down the project. Whew! In the midst of running on the ‘hamster wheel,’ my partner and I had just the briefest of window of clarity. And in that tiny, tiny space of clarity, we woke up and said “wait! Is this really what we want?”

That’s all it took for us to take a step back and say to ourselves, this is a really bad situation and it’s not going to be good for neither our new client nor us. We thought, “wow, what did we just almost do to ourselves? That was close! We almost threw ourselves into a situation where we would sacrifice our own personal well being along with our client’s.” That like a lifeguard jumping into the water to save a panicked swimmer that’s going to drown them both!

All of a sudden, I feel much better. I feel alive again. I feel like I actually can influence the direction of my life instead of just having the past repeat itself.

Anyway, just wanted to share with those that might read this.

Add comment April 9th, 2009