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Many times entrepreneurs quit because it is such a difficult lifestyle. It is a lonely road and the chances of success are very slim. You have to have a true passion for what you do in order to succeed in any entrepreneurial journey or have an amazing drive to work hard every single day.
CEO of Prospecting On Demand, Alex Schlinsky has had his fair share of moments where he has wanted to quit. Schlinsky is a renowned business coach, speaker, and entrepreneur. His company has actually helped over 125 entrepreneurs build 6-figure companies. Throughout all of the hardships he faced before his company was built, he continued to grow and succeed because quitting was not an option. He shared a time where he felt like giving up and what he did instead of giving up, here it is.
Can you tell me about a time when you almost gave up, how you felt about that, and what you did instead of giving up?
Wasn’t even that long ago. October 2018. I had been working on building my coaching program for 2 years at the time. I was putting in a ton of work, late hours, and pouring all of my emotional energy into every client we had. It was precious. It mattered. I was impacting people and it felt great! But 2 years of working HARD and not necessarily SMART had burnt me out. I wasn’t available in the capacity my wife needed me to be, let alone my clients. I was constantly stressed and overwhelmed about hitting sales targets. Clients were kicking ass, and I was getting my ass kicked. Financially things were great, life had never been better, but the money wasn’t fulfilling me. I was tired. I wanted out.
It REALLY hit me when I kickstarted my ELITE program. My brand new high-ticket coaching program launched just about 6 months before, and the results were staggering. Clients were having transformational growth, and so was our business. I was in love with coaching and had 2 calls every week with the mastermind. Then we started running 2 cohorts at the same time. 4 mastermind calls every week, 2 every Tuesday/Thursday. I woke up one Thursday in October, and just thought: “Man, I have NO INTEREST in doing this today”
That was the alarm. That was when I knew something had to change. I had poured my soul into this business for 2 years, waking up every day happy, and that came to a sudden and violent shock.
The reaction was visceral. Like when a cop pulls up behind you while you’re 10 above the speed limit. It was a paradigm shift for me. Everything I was working for suddenly seemed worthless because for the first time I really didn’t want to do it. It terrified me.
So I took a week off. A very important coach told me to stop revving up the engine and just surrender to the burnout. So I did. I told everyone in the program that I needed some space to collect my thoughts. During that week I took 4 days off completely to myself. I went to the beach, went walking in the beautiful Tampa nature preserves, and winded down.
The rest of the time I spent on my WHY. If I was capable of waning in my passion, I knew I could work back towards somewhere between malaise and delirium if I was aligned with WHY I am in this business. About 5 weeks later, my story was published in Entrepreneur.
I was reinvigorated because for the first time I felt aligned. I knew what was at stake, and I knew what I was fighting for. Having gone to the depths of burnout and back, I realized what truly mattered to me, and finally had clarity on how to get there.
I finished out the cohorts, and completely realigned the ELITE program to be evergreen, more effective, and more systemized.
The next 3 months were better than I could have ever expected. I brought on new team members, and we were smashing revenue goals.
I went to the brink and came back. I knew that quitting was never really an option, but I also knew I couldn’t remain disingenuous. It was the most difficult, but also rewarding, 3 months of my career.
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