What would Tigger be like if he ran a business?

If Tigger was in business, he’d never come to me for business coaching, partly because he wouldn’t be able to sit still in his chair in my office for a whole 2 hours – he’d need to be off doing something after about 10 minutes.

And I’m not sure that Tigger would be a satisfied client because he would be pretty unlikely to listen to my advice. He would do whatever is in his head at the moment, not what was on our agreed action list at the end of the meeting.

What would Tigger behave like in business?

Tigger is likely to be rash, and start up a million businesses all at once. He’ll put all of his money into a new venture, and then re-mortgage his house to keep it going.

He doesn’t finish off the product he was so keen to ship because he would get bored with it halfway through. Tigger will be in love with another idea which he also wants to do, but doesn’t quite finish that one either.

Tigger’s website runs very slowly because he’s put in so many extra gimmicks and plugins. Tigger thought all these plugins would help him bounce through and find the easy way to business success, but instead, they have had a negative impact on his site.

Tigger’s clients would love him

But his clients will love Business Tigger, and he loves all of them. He loves them so much that he overservices them, and provides much too much.

But he’ll have a good supply of them, because he’s always out at networking events, talking to people and telling them about how good he is. Tigger’s such an attractive character that many of us will buy from him, even if we’re not sure that we need whatever he’s selling this month.

Tigger will have many business failures. Tigger cries over the agency he had to close down because he was so busy bouncing around getting new clients that he forgot to send out the correct invoices.

And he sometimes wonders whatever happened to that business partner who ran off with the money in the bank account. But the day after these terrible things happen, Tigger will be setting up another business.

Why you might want to channel some of your inner Tigger in business

Tigger might sound like a nightmare. And in many ways, he would be. But I think the rest of us could do with channelling some of that Tigger spirit. I envy Tigger and his resilience.

He doesn’t blame himself if something goes wrong. Tigger goes on with the next thing. There is no self-doubt for him.

And Tigger has bounce. Most of us could do with some more bounce.

I spend a lot of my time as a business coach, encouraging clients that they can achieve what they’ve set out to do. Tigger wouldn’t need any of that and thoroughly believes that he can be a multi-millionaire, and Tigger will bounce along until he is.

Tigger doesn’t worry about giving a talk about himself or about writing his achievements in business. He’s been right up there on stage, telling you all about how he made it. He’s even proud of his failures because he doesn’t see them as failures – just minor detours on the way to success.

Tigger is the first to do favours for other people, so he’d be great at getting referrals. All of these favours and the fact that he’s a great guy to be around are what protects him from any real difficulties. Whenever things go wrong for him, there’s always someone who’s happy to help him back on his feet.

If you’re a Tigger in business yourself

If you recognise some of these Tigger traits in yourself, you’ll need some of the opposite characteristics to help you calm down and see things through. You can’t change your Tigger personality – why should you?

But it might be good to balance out your Tigger with a business partner or a business advisor who can help you to see things through and get to the end point. The one where you make some money from your business.

And you might want to adopt some calming habits such as meditation (even just for 2 minutes a day) or switching to drinking herbal tea instead of coffee which gives you extra bounce that you don’t need.

Do you want to be just a little more Tigger in business?

I’m the opposite of Tigger in many ways. I like to plan. I’m happy to sit at my computer until I’ve finished my to-do list. And although I enjoy going to networking events and doing talks, sometimes I have to remind myself that I enjoy these more extrovert parts of running a business.

Sometimes we all need some of Tigger’s great attributes.

To reach down within ourselves, and find that bounce, here are some of the things I’ve discovered which help me to be a bit more Tigger. They might be good for you too.

• Cardio exercise. I hate cardio – I’d much rather do yoga or pilates. But I’m a lot more Tigger if I ride my bike to work, which is an excellent way of doing cardio without realising it, or walking upstairs in giant Tigger bounces two steps at a time.

• Laughing. Tigger finds everything hilarious and is always having fun. There’s a myth that business is serious and no laughing is allowed. Join in with some other people to find the funny side, or watch something to make you chuckle during your lunch break.

• Being outside. You can’t imagine Tigger spending much time in the office, can you? I’m lucky that my office is 5 minutes from Brighton seafront, but even if you’re far from the sea, it can still be good to go for a walk to the local park to look at some trees. Tigger would climb up them, but I’ll leave that one up to you.

Are you ready to spring into action?

Here are some ways I can help you and your business:

• One to one coaching and support to take your business to the next stage.
• Programmes and courses to help you focus on your business and get support from me and other people
• Books and manuals to learn more about running a successful business
• Exclusive content by email with tips, thoughts and stories about what I’ve learnt about business

Photo credit – I think this is a photo of a lemur, but all the pics of Tigger were copyright to someone else.  Thanks to Stefan Insam for this great photo of a lemur channelling his/her inner Tigger and Joshua Earle and Neven Krcmarek from Unsplash.