Running any successful business online or off can be like a tightrope walk of balance and poise. It takes practiced moves to appear graceful and skilled walking that thin line with little room for error or slip-ups. It's no simple task to keep your attention focused on your goal and take the next careful step toward it without becoming distracted by the three ring circus going on all around us! 
 
 Metaphors like this can be helpful to illustrate the point I'd like to make. Success can be unsettling when you are making progress toward your goal. This week was like that at WebSite101. My offline business brought me several unexpected successes that distracted my attention from this newsletter and handling other online tasks. I felt as though I were juggling in the ring below at the same time I was walking that tightrope overhead.
 
 Then, as I was basking in the glowing positive appraisals from my clients, I let my attention wander from the online work just long enough to slip and lose my balance for a moment on the tightrope! An article that you have already seen here in the "Reading List" was re-published in a much larger e-zine called the "Internet Gazette" with a circulation of over 100,000 readers! That success brought with it a jump in circulation to this newsletter and a surge in online business that I was unprepared for while so involved in my offline business.

 While all of the things causing me to lose my balance were positive, the result was the same. Inattention causes slips and slips can lead to falls if you cannot regain your poise and keep your mind on reaching the other end of the tightrope! I stumbled with a couple of online clients and let a big job get almost overwhelming but somehow kept my footing. The adrenalin rush was caused by fear of losing it all in a quick fall but turned into exhilaration when I regained my balance!

 I am thrilled with the successes but at the same time I'm startled at how they can be almost as unsettling as complete failures when focus and attention are so critical to staying balanced! Maybe I'll learn to juggle while on the tightrope so that my offline and online lives are at least on the same rope and not in different rings of this circus.

 At least I know while online, I don't need to put my head in a lions mouth, pull a rabbit out of my hat or ride white horses bareback in silk tights! Just keep my balance and juggle!