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November 9, 2012

What Goes Through The Mind?

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  What are they thinking about?

I have been in those shoes before.  I have felt what they feel.  I have experienced how empty and troubling those thoughts can be, while at the same time, how heavy they can feel.  It is an awful place to live.  I know, I have stood for a very long time in those kinds of troubling shoes.  I have walked down the halls of not knowing what to do next.  I have worked beyond hard to push flashing and terrible thoughts out of my mind to remain on track with my level headed sensibilities.  Not always succeeding at that effort.  Losing control and allowing my temper to take over.  I have crashed hard, cried, worried so deeply that at times I almost blacked out with the high pressures of this kind of stress.  I forgot who I am and began lying about who I was and how I was doing.  I did not want anyone to know I had failed.  It was utterly shameful...but very secret.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  Too many wrong things.

The first trick to initialize the process for healthy repair is to flat out admit it.  Just simply sit down and admit that help is very much needed.  That is where the real work begins for becoming a better business owner.  When the light of admission finally goes on the darkness of not knowing begins to shine.  In my case, it was the very first time in my business career that I was able to shed some light on where I was not able to do well.  No more cover-ups for the skills I lacked.  Get them out and noticed immediately.  That way my business team can begin the work to help solve problems where those weaknesses occurred.  My leadership magically grew well when I allowed them to be good where I was not.  It is an utterly amazing thing to watch happen.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  Emotionally wrong thinking goes on in the mind of a failing business leader.  We get quietly consumed with the fears that surround how we feel about losing control.  We feel threatened by knowing what others see.  We work overtime to protect what those fears want to reveal.  Our emotions grow larger and our denial works harder as we subconsciously manifest clever ways to survive.  We inadvertently change our personal being in an effort to protect who we want others to see.  We get out of ourselves and become someone else that nobody close to us recognizes anymore.  Conflict becomes how we manage our closest relationships.  Conflict becomes the way we manage our business affairs.  Conflict becomes how we treat certain customers.  We pick and choose who we want to serve.  Conflict arrives to quietly rule how our business model survives.  It all becomes a terrible spiraling effect.  It becomes the drain that drives the business.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  What happens to their future when all of this stuff takes over?  That depends.  It depends on how that business leader responds to these daunting challenges.  The next steps they employ to begin the process of repair become the new beginning to a better path their business model will travel.  The steering wheel still remains in their hands.  Turning that steering wheel still becomes their next choice.  Regardless of how deeply my business was challenged when I was faced with sheer destruction, I still had my hands on the wheel of its direction.  It was still up to me to decide where to go.  It still remained in my influence to go get some help.  It still remained in my influence to consider changing my ways.  It still remained in my influence to correct what I did not know.  It still remained in my influence to admit what I could not see.  My habits began to be challenged.  My ways began to be destroyed.  My being felt like it was disrespected and I also felt like everyone else was trying to flip it over.  I had a grip on the steering wheel that nobody else wanted to touch, in the way I wanted them to touch it.  I felt lost and alone.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?

Page two.


As frustrating as it can become, these are the real thoughts of the mind inside the one who is losing the game.  The beautiful things that built the business become the wrongful thoughts that help to destroy its hope for repair.  The charm that once was, disappears.  The empathy that surrounded good thoughts, eliminated.  The extraordinary service that flowed everywhere can no longer be found.  The owners pleasant attitude towards daily mishaps that others sometimes produce becomes the spark of impatience that ignites a forest fire.  The real thoughts of a failing business mind become very sheltered and very closed.  Even the owner cannot see how closed their own mind has become.  It is well protected.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  In my case, I become the great pretender.  I pretended to know everything.  I pretended to know my employees better than they knew themselves.  I pretended to know more than my accountant knew about budgeting and finance issues.  I pretended to know more about my products and services than anyone else in the world.  I pretended to know more about how people think and how people act more than anyone else in the world.  I pretended to know why my business model was failing.  I became the great pretender.  I was very good at it, as well.

My loved ones could see my quiet deception as plain as day.  What's worse, I denied how well they could see what I felt was not true.  This kind of baggage, when added to endearing relationships, can produce a division between that bond that once came with the closeness of understanding.  A struggling business owner may actually lose this art.  Their life painting will no longer reflect the beautiful strokes of this kind of respect.  As a result, close relationships begin to deteriorate.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  Frankly, too much goes through that mind.  Stuff runs wild and the mind drifts far away from the right things being done.  Wrong stuff takes over and the owner drifts deeper into the patterns that help to restrain how well the business can perform.  Crap happens.  I know, I not only stepped in it...I once decided to sit smack dab in the middle of where it smelled the worse.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?

This is one of the most difficult questions to ponder when the business model goes haywire.  What happens to the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  Frankly, too much.

If you are facing this kind of pattern, get help.  Stop protecting what you do not know.  Stop deceiving how you see who you see.  Permit your courage to return back to your soul.  Get your dreams re-established.  Get your causes placed back online.  Get your hope re-lifted up to the top of your mental shelves.  Stop destroying what you think others cannot see.  Begin doing what you do not understand.  Start stepping on stones that do not look familiar anymore.  Begin to trust your loved ones much more than you ever imagined.  Work harder to mend the damage produced by the wedges that entered the lives of the souls within your sphere of influence.  Mend the relationships you have.  If you are ever able to turn this business around, you will desperately need their complete support.  Respect this truth beyond understanding it.

I now repair broken business models for a living.  My first one was my own.  I speak from a serious position of knowledge.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  Plenty.

Now get up off of the cold floor and start changing what is not working.  Let go of those things you are so desperately trying to protect.  Admit your lacks and trust your helpers.  Learn the beautiful art of developing better relationships.  This will become your future legacy.  Your business is waiting for you to turn the steering wheel into a brand new direction.  Go ahead, turn it carefully but with a steadfast understanding for taking special care of a special you.  The world needs to begin trading with who you are, not the one you are pretending to be.  There is a huge difference.  Go get help.

What goes through the mind of a business owner who is having serious economic challenges in their business model and failure has become a very real and dominating consideration?  How many times can you ask this question and still remain unanswered?

Go get help.

Until next time...          

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