Burnouts are only cool in NASCAR

I love motor sports. Boats, bikes, cars, track, drag strip, all of it. NASCAR is particularly fascinating to me.

It’s so incredible that 40 cars can swap paint at 200 miles per hour for hundreds of miles, all for that sweet glory of victory by mere seconds at the checkered flag.

In racing, tradition demands that the winner do a “burnout” at the finish line, smoking tires until they nearly pop or catch on fire (and the fans go nuts for it!).

But burnouts are only cool in NASCAR.

Burnout is a common story among business owners…

You are passionate about your skills and serving people, so you set out to change your community by being the best there is.

The thing starts to work. You start growing, start hiring, get a bigger space – all the while having to blaze new or unexpected trails (often without a map). You are managing people and their personalities, developing operations, dealing with customers, putting out fires, driving new sales, all while trying to continue inspiring yourself so you can inspire everyone else.

Overhead grows, there are more commas in all the numbers, and then environmental factors like supply chain woes, economic recessions, global pandemics, union strikes, and shipping variables throw the efforts of the business off course.

One day you wake up and have that dreaded thought: “Why I am I even doing this?”

Burnout is creeping in.

One useful antidote to burnout is to identify a clear sense of purpose.

It’s important to know what heading to be on and to orient your ship so that those winds can fill your sails. Having a personal “why” (or a list of “whys”) is essential for reminding yourself of your purpose.

It’s also imperative that your business has a clearly defined purpose and that your team knows what that purpose is (and can repeat it when asked).

So what’s your purpose?

Simon is author and founder of Profit Hiker: 11 Trails to gain lasting elevation in your business. Find the book right here and the program over there.