“Personal Demons Can Kill Personal Growth”

In business decisions rule each and every day and quite often every hour of the day.  These decisions with regard to what business we want to pursue or to what extent we wish to be involved often change with age.  When we are young we may enjoy and not really be bothered by the lengthy hours and physical hustle of retail style operations; even the highly energetic and sometimes exhausting beat of the janitorial or food franchise or a transportation business.

As we become older and become parents we start to think about three, (3) primary elements:

 

1. How much can our bodies take in terms of travel to and from the business?
2. How much are we sacrificing if the business keeps us away from our children for lengthy periods of time?
3. Is what I am doing now something I can proudly will to my children for them to run when I retire and from which I can still collect a paycheck?

These are not questions we can take lightly.  Sometimes we have to think about number #3 with great seriousness for generational reasons.  What we may have taken pride in doing, including the 2-hour commute, our children – from a different generation with a differing mindset – may not find so plausible.  Therefore, making business decisions must involve more than what might work for us at this moment but what will work best for our heirs.

A powerful demon, or shall we say negative thought process centers around our own confidence or lack thereof.  You may have been thinking about a specific business model that sounds enjoyable and fulfilling to own, manage and even to leave for your children.  However, due to your not having a background that you feel complements this business model you shy away and even refuse to make a concrete decision.  Can you manage away from this demon?  Absolutely.

The solution generally lies in no more than your ensuring you have the right leadership to guide your entry into your new aspiration and qualified management to contribute to the process once things are moving.  This can be a larger challenge for those who were not born in the country where you plan to start this business but it need not hold you handicapped forever.  All absences of familiarity are overcome with study, research and qualified coaching.

A second demon is the time you might invest in talking yourself out of wonderful opportunities.  You may have weighed the risk and you realize that even somewhat delayed success would not make you crumble.  However, deep inside you find yourself a victim of the kind of internal conversation that stifles growth and kills progress.  Once we allow this thinking to take root we will find ourselves held hostage by the familiar when the unfamiliar holds more promise long-term.

Some who have refused to take this road will tell you that your own worst enemy can easily be yourself.

A third demon is when others take a more cautious approach to growth oriented projects while they wait to examine the success of others in their center of influence who may be involved in similar things.  On the surface this may appear prudent but it can also be a recipe for personal disaster.  Why?  For these reasons:

1. This mindset could indicate a lack of self-confidence or belief in self since you are basing your prospects of success on whether or not someone else succeeds.  This is especially damaging when the circumstances of that person and their project including location, capitalization and more may be far different than yours.
2. Secondly this could indicate that your own research, confidence and personal forecasting are in doubt by you since you prefer to tie your prospect for success to the potential of success among others.

Imagine how this demon can hurt you in  a variety of ways.

I recall in the 90’s when I entered adult day care, home care and assisted living within a two, (2) year period and seven, (7) years later bridged that into continuing education and care staff development and training.  Sure there was tons of studying going on and lots of preparation but at no time was I going to sit around and worry about someone’s else’s competitive advantage when I could create that advantage for myself.  I learned how to become familiar with the operations of others, how to exploit their weaknesses and twenty, (20) years later I refuse to look back, for tomorrow means more to me than yesterday.

Of course we all experience setbacks of a personal and business nature but when that becomes the basis to stop pursuing growth, we have larger issues.  We call these issues internal demons.

This does not mean that our decisions should come without due diligence.  But once that’s over, its time to move forward or examine how we allow our minds to work.

So let’s approach life with a focus on self-improvement and self-development.  The picture at the end of the rainbow will not be one of perfection but then again fulfillment does not require perfection, just commitment and strategy.

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