The Ability To Bounce Back

Wow, we had a great 4th of July celebration with new family & new friends.  Just great food, lots of fun and interesting fellowship.  One of the things I love about these kinds of gatherings is the stimulating conversation and the myriad of topics that arise. 

One of the basics is always, "so tell me, what do you do?"  As a family of entrepreneurs, it always spikes the conversation.  My wife launched her business in January of this year and I have been in business over 16 years, employing hundreds of employees and enduring the challenges of business.   So, the follow up question is generally, "so what is it that you think is the number 1 thing small business owners can do or need?"

I have learned over the years to never get to high over the wins and never get to low over the losses.  I call that "Resiliency."  The ability to bounce back when things take a downward spike, a client terminates your services, you under bid an account, or have to handle an extreme employee incident that threatens your very existence.  Resiliency is the ability to overcome challenges and bounce back wiser, stronger and more personally powerful.  You have both external coping mechanisms and internal ones.  Through your desire to intentionally grow yourself, you are strengthening your internal coping mechanisms and by reaching out through collaboration, conferences, seminars you are making connections that can be quite useful and beneficial during the life of your business.  Without the ability to cope with the many challenges that will, not might but will, come your way - business will be more of a headache, stress, worry, anxiety and gray or no hair. 

Over my years of business, I have seen a lot, not everything, but almost!  I have been injured at work, had employees injured at work, had employees commit serious offenses while on duty, had clients skip out on thousands of dollars of invoices and have even had top administrators embezzle thousands of dollars.  That my friends is a lot of "bouncing back", a lot of resolve and a lot of reaching out to people near and far for input on handling these types of situations.  I could share page after page of the challenges - but regardless of the challenges, it's your desire, passion and commitment to your vision.  I mean, a lot of people can decide to do something, only a handful actually do.  You may of heard the riddle, "4 boys sitting on a log by the lake during a hot summer afternoon.  3 of the boys decided they were going to jump in the lake.  So, how many boys remain on the log?  The usual answer is 1, because 3 jumped in.  You would be wrong...the answer is 4, because deciding to do something is different from actually doing something!"

Being self employed has been one of the greatest thrills of my life, one of the greatest challenges in my life but by far, one of the greatest accomplishments in my life.  Building something from nothing, amazing and inspiring.