Business Brink

For those of you wondering about working at your desk on an exercise ball, here's my candid feedback:

Pros
- my lower back and the back of my legs feel much better after sitting on it for several weeks (felt a difference in the first week)
- the height (at least to my desk) is about the same as a normal chair
- I'm more likely to use my core (i.e. abs and back) more than I would if I were sitting
- makes me think of how funny it was when Jim stabbed Dwight's exercise ball in one of the episodes from The Office
- there's much less temptation to fall rest at my desk, however sitting on it doesn't
- I mentally feel a little less lazy compared to sitting on a normal chair all day
- it's a lot less expensive than an office chair

Cons
- can't swivel like a normal chair when someone comes in my office
- I usually have to wear shoes or slippers to keep from slipping
- sometimes I'll look over at my leather couch and want to sit on that (I do when I have longer phone calls)
- it's a ball, so clearly it's not as comfortable as a good chair or couch would be

I recently received an email from a viewer/reader from Greece. Towards the end of the email, Anestis asks me how my blood pressure is and closes by saying, "Health is also and asset you know..."

These are wise words and I couldn't agree more. I'm not as healthy as I should be, however I'm happy to report that I have started to work out at a local gym in the mornings. And believe it or not, my back feels much better after I traded in my leather office chair for an exercise ball (looks like Dwight from The Office was right after all).

I told myself about six months ago that I'd do something big to celebrate my one year anniversary for Zoom Agent... so much for that! October 1st was actually the one year mark for being off on my own and although I didn't do anything big to celebrate, I'm still very happy to have crossed that line.

I'm really looking forward to this new year. I'm ramping up to get my business to a point where I can hire a good team (at least one designer and one developer). It's so overwhelming to think about hiring people. I'm ready to do it quite yet, but I'm getting there and suspect I'll be able to do it sometime in 2008. It's daunting to think of the responsibilities I'll have for not just myself but for employees as well. The particular challenge I'm faced with is WHEN to do it. I need to hire people to be able to grow my business how I'd like, however this will add more burden and bring new challenges. If any of you three readers have any advise on signs I should be looking for to be able to hire people, please don't hold back.

Thanks.

I feel like I've really been held hostage by my work lately. I apologize to the three of you that actually ready this blog... okay, so maybe there's really only two of you. Three just sounded better.

Anyway, I've really been blessed with some good work recently and it's caused me to not be able to make the time as easily to post more episodes. However, as I get adjusted to everything I'll put some good episodes out there. And since I'm working on several "makeovers" with clients, I'll have one of the episodes take you through the steps I take to take a company's current identity to the next level.

One (small) thing I'm doing to help get out of the bonds of work is to make all Fridays 1/2 days for work. This forces me to make sure I have things in order to be able to take the afternoon off. It's actually hard to take time off work, but I think I'll learn to get used to it somehow.