8 Things small business owners can learn from dancers

  
Much like running a business, dance is a lot of work and it can be super rewarding.

1. Dedication

   Dancers are probably some of the most dedicated people you will ever meet. Dance is not just about pitching up, it’s about complete focus and always doing everything that’s expected of you and so is business. You can’t just show up and be like “I’m here!”  You need to be available and willing to dedicate your whole being to the business. 

2. Around the clock hard work

   When you’re running a business there is no “off time”. Your business goes home with you most days. This is the same with dancing. Dancers have to stretch at night, take care of injuries, costumes, extra practices.

   This is not always a good thing though. Sometimes we need to learn to separate ourselves from our business to avoid burnout. 

3. Pushing through the pain

   Consider a ballerina dancing en-pointe. It’s beautiful. But when she gets off stage and takes off her pointe shoes, that’s a different picture. It’s pretty nasty. Yet, she still does it over and over again. She pushes through the pain for the sake of the beauty.

   Running a business is also going to have painful moments and you need to learn to push through them everyday to create what your business truly is. For me, this pain is admin work. 

4. Never showing his much it hurts

   And now that you’re pushing through the painful parts you’ve gotta do it with a smile! All dancers keep up the act, constantly.

   Moaning and complaining won’t take away from the fact that you have to do the work, won’t take away from how painful it sometimes can be. So instead, do it with a smile. I promise you that this way it will seem a lot less painful. 

5. Taking the good with the bad

   Along with the bad there comes good. For example, working hard on the admin side of your business means more clients, happier clients, more revenue, and an overall better business experience for everyone involved.

   Dancers take the good with the bad all the time and to the extent that often they fool people into believing their is no bad but only good. Thys how you should run your business. Fool people into believing that everything is always good. This way, you’ll also fool yourself to an extent and take the bad in your stride without slowing down too much over the humps in your path. 

6. Difficult people

   You will get people that moan and complain. You will get people that are mean, people that shout, people that think your’e weird pretty much everywhere in life.
   When working with difficult people try to remind yourself that there are clients with problems and problem clients, which one are you working with?

7. Wonderful people

   You will make friends, meet mentors, and your business associates and employees will often become like family.

   Just like in dance, your dance friends will become like family, your teachers like mentors, and the audience like clients. 

8. Always something new

   There is no better feeling in dance like learning a new piece of choreography or learning to do a new trick or move.

   This is the same in business, finding new ways to implement structures into your business and learning about business and the industry you are in can become fun and exciting if you let it. 

Dancers and small business owners can be very alike. Running your business like a professional dancer runs her life and career can only lead to success. It won’t be easy, sometimes it won’t be fun, but at the end of the day you’re creative NG something beautiful and that makes it all worth it.