Scripture for Six Stages of a Start UpChikamu

Seeking Help: The Fellowship of the Unimpressed

Do you ever feel like you have the weight of the whole world—not to mention the weight of your whole business—on your shoulders? For an entrepreneur, this is a struggle that goes way beyond balancing work and family. While that is a challenge in and of itself, there’s something else that comes with being the leader of the business.

When someone has an idea, they run it by you. When a big decision needs to be made, people look to you to make the call. All the details that come with running a business are on your plate. And never mind having just one plate—being an entrepreneur is more like balancing several spinning plates covered in tasks, meetings, and memos all at the same time. 

If you’re looking for someone who can relate, Moses is your guy. You think leading a few dozen employees is a lot (for the record, it is), Moses was leading somewhere between 2 and 5 million people at this time. Yeah, you read that right. Millions. We look at that and think he had to be crazy to try to handle all that responsibility by himself. But are we that different?

One of the entrepreneur’s greatest temptations is to shoulder every single responsibility. Delegating never comes easy for an entrepreneur. But Moses’ father-in-law had some sound wisdom that many of us need to hear today: “The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.”

Today’s task is simple: get help. Who can you turn to in your life that will help you? How can you surround yourself with a “fellowship of the unimpressed”—people who will respect you and help you without worshipping the ground you walk on? We all need a group like that in our lives. We need people who wade through both the successes and the failures and help us make things happen.

Good leaders aren’t possessive toward responsibility or power. And great entrepreneurs know they need help to get the job done.

Further Thought

• Why is it hard to give up control, especially when it comes to your business/idea/company?
• What do you think about the idea of the fellowship of the unimpressed? Do you have people in mind who can fill this role in your life?
• Who benefits the most when you’re able to include others in your decision-making as well as delegate some of your responsibilities?
• How can you take action on the advice of Moses’ father-in-law today? Who is someone you can talk to about this idea?