Micro-Business 101- Addendum

Update your identity. Your glory days don't count anymore!

I failed to mention one of the biggest barriers to starting or succeeding as a self-employed person! Sometimes it is almost impossible to get over your glory days as Senior Vice President, General Manager, or whatever you were when you were great.

Note: You may not feel that you are stuck in the past, but if you feel life is treating you unfairly, you ARE living in the past!

This is no joke. You can see people who are stuck in past glory days on almost any  street corner and in the seedier bars. Their comments invariably begin. "When I was..."

That was then. This is now. You can either live in your memories, or you can get on with life. To succeed in a small business, you need to roll up your sleeves, do what is needed to get the work done, and carry out the garbage if necessary.

If you think it is beneath you to schlepp merchandise around or pass out fliers to promote an event you are holding, then you have no business trying to run your own business. Get out your suit and tie and work somewhere respectable as a furniture salesman or as a clerk in a shoe store.

Small business require hard work and guts and a willingness to BE whatever the jobs takes to get it done. If you are micro-business manufacturer, you may end up delivering your product in a truck. Big deal! You take off your polo shirt and loafers, get into work clothes and make the delivery on schedule.

You may have a micro-business that requires you to fill up your car with products for distribution on a route. So be it. As long as you are enthusiastically being what you need to be to succeed, you will do fine.

Only if you are still being that long-ago project manager at Boeing or Sun Microsystems will you suffer torment and humiliation. And you will deserve it! If you are stuck in the past, you set yourself up for constant losses.

Have you ever seen someone who was still stuck in a past relationship? Everyone this person meets is being compared unfavorably to dear old whatsername. What are this person's chances for happiness? Nonexistent, until they lose the fond memory of past glory.

Get real and get into the present moment if you are to have any kind of a life. The reason this applies so severely to a micro-business owner is that you really can't fake it. So much of your business success depends on your authenticity.

Everything I said in the previous post still applies. It's just that you will not be able to use the data if you are stuck in some past career glory day.

Learn from the past. Don't use it as an excuse for your present condition. You still have a life ahead of you.

Good luck.

Comments

[Andreas Duess]

This made me laugh out loud. I was thinking about that exact scenario a couple of days back when I was setting up a server, editing our company blog and then settling into a Photoshop session.

I used to have people to do all of this. But although I earn a fraction of what I used to I can't tell you how much happier I am. I am having fun again, running and building a business, not sitting in meetings all day long.

[David]

I'm glad it made you laugh.

I, too, am working hard and having fun again... every single day!