Burnout to Thriving Solopreneur with David Ralph
Burnout to Thriving Entrepreneur with David Ralph
David was determined to see his business thrive. When he was given a stern warning from his doctor that he may only have 6 months left if he didn’t slow down, he increased his workload. He tried to accomplish his goal before his health runway ran out. He ended up burning out and in the hospital needing to scale back his 20 hour days.
In today’s interview, he shares his journey and the process he created to live a healthy life and run a successful business. You can listen to the audio interview on the Podcast: Here
David Ralph is the host of the top-ranked online show, Join Up Dots where he joins up the dots of his guest’s lives, highlighting their failures and successes (with more than a few laughs in between)
He is an ex-corporate trainer, with a wife, five kids, a grandson, a cat, and a snail (that might actually be dead already…who can tell?)
The Beginning
When David started Join Up Dots, he was working 20 hour days and wearing all the hats required to get the jobs done. He tells us that being an entrepreneur requires learning new skills daily to keep up with everything that needs to be done.
In the beginning, David had not figured out what he was really good at and he did everything. His friends commented that he didn’t look well and his hair began to fall out. That was when the doctor told him that he needed to slow down and that he may have a heart attack or stroke in the next 6 months. David figured, if he had 6 months then he could work even harder and as long as he finished the job before the time was up, he would be ok.
He was living life as if he were Superman but like all mere mortals, burn out hit him again. David is not the type of man to give up and on he pressed. He was determined to figure it out.
Optimized Entrepreneurship for The Solopreneur
David figured out how to optimize his tasks and put systems into place. He has interviewed over 1200+ successful guests on his show and what he took away from all those interviews was that the most successful people are not all that smart. They focus on what they are best at doing, the 10%.
He told us that that thing that you are the best at, the thing that no one can do better than you is the exact thing that you feel guilty for charging for.
Skills
The path to success for David was not straight and easy yet he demonstrated some skills along the way to achieve victory. Here are a few that really stood out to me.
- Savouring: Putting a spin on a cold rainy day by enjoying the time in his warm bed.
- Vision: Having a vision and the ability to work away towards it each day without giving up until the objective has been achieved.
- Optimism: Being able to see the good in situations and to know when it’s bad that it will get better. Not giving up.
- Humour: From the intro, he used humor as he does on his own show, it lightens up life!
Parting Guidance
If you want to do something, know that it is there waiting for you. It is in your head for a reason, you never get ideas that pop into your head that you don’t want to do. That thing that pops in your mind is waiting, it is knocking on your door and it is your duty to open it.
Books
Podcast
Links
- https://podcastersmastery.com/
- https://joinupdots.com/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpralph/
- https://twitter.com/joinupdotsdaily
- http://www.viacharacter.org/www/
- Listen to the podcast interview: Here
- Music credit with gratitude to Scott Holmes. Song Innovative Corporate scottholmesmusic.com URL: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes/Corporate__Motivational_Music
