Well Dave are you feeling any better today?
Well here goes, this is to demonstrate how not alone or unusual you or your situation is.
Year 2000 after long service and climbing up the corporate ladder i ended up being hospitalised or instituionalised i think they call it. I had a breakdown and ended up in a mental health hospital.
Me, a larger than life centre of attention top achiever within a national department store chain, i spent far too long in there and when allowed home i found no employer would touch me with a barge pole, as soon as you mention mental health the " sane " people head for the hills.
My ten year old son suggested cos i liked cleaning mums windows i should be a window cleaner. We started with a borrowed £35 from my late mum no experience no no how and worst of all no customers.
My wife (couldnt have done it without her) two young kids and i hand wrote leaflets saying we wil clean your house windows for £3.50 yes ANY house, how stupidly lovely naive we were.
Week one got three clients week two reached the dizzy heights of ten, ten and how we danced around the living room with delight.
After walking with a ladder and a full bucket of water for nine months we finally did a deal with a local businessman.I washed his office windows and house windows for free and he rented me his car for £30 a week while he was at work. I walked to his house in the morning, drove him to his office used the car for my round returning at 5pm every day to collect him from work took him home and then i walked home. What a bargain eh all for £30 a week.He said it was cheaper than paying parking huh.
Long story short i know what it is like to be down there and how good it feels to build something but it can still be very difficult at times but Dave you must as Helen says talk to someone even if it is on here or by PM or e-mail or as she suggests your most loyal supporter your lovely wife.
Achieving a balance between work and home is what we all crave but like standing on a high wire it is bloody difficult and you need to learn to sway one direction or the other at different times to remain balanced.
Last year we turned over £400,000, today we have 28 staff with a manager, six vans and trucks a fully staffed office a second home in Spain and all the other trappings that goes with it , am i any happier? hard to say but success breeds success and once you start that cycle it is hard to stop it rolling along as you yourself demonstrate with your new 17 school contract.
My advice is get off the ladders and become the boss of the business, accept the fact you need to become a businessman and that you are no longer a window cleaner this will allow you to concentrate on achieving your business objectives instead of as now being slave of them all and master of none. You need to stand back and be the captain of your ship, plot the course,decide where you want to be and let others sail the ship and do the work. Imagine setting the sails doing the rowing, steering, the rudder all by yourself the ship would go round in circles or end up run aground. Sound familiar?
Wow too much info of me to you all but i hope some of it, any of it, even a little bit might make a wee bit difference to even one of you and Dave i hope i have maybe given you a little sight of the light at the end of the tunnel and to help you to see IT IS NOT YOU OR ANYTHING YOU ARE OR ARE NOT DOING like Helen said we as employers all get like this now and then.
Keep that chin up, give your missus a big hug and get your finger out and be the very best window cleaning business in your area cos you are obviously more than capable of it
As they said to me in the mental home " its not you thats crazy it is everyone else"
regards
Gordon
ps am i happy now? who knows but i will never forget that day we ring a ring a roseed around the living room cos we had TEN customers.