How many people are insane enough to schedule a radio interview at 8:00 am on New Year’s Day? Yes, my friends last night thought I was crazy. But I’ve enjoyed every past interview with Jim Blasingame, the Small Business Advocate, so much that when they called and asked me to join him on his show this morning I decided to do it. As it turned out, it was a great way to start the first day of a new year.
Jim and I talked about what was going to be required for businesses in 2009. His take on it: don’t be afraid to celebrate mere survival as an accomplishment in 2009. We’re both optimists but you can’t ignore the reality: the tough times aren’t over yet. Check out the recording of our discussion and let me know what you think about it!

For me, though, I see opportunities in tough times. I think this is a great time to remember a couple of key points and work to build on them. While I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, the following are ideas to keep in focus over the entire year.

1.     Your work is not who you are. I ran into this when I cashed out of my first company. I had put so much into it that the separation felt like a painful limb extraction. It took me some time to realize that my business, or my book for that matter, was not my identity. They are merely things I have done. True, actions speak louder than words about our character, but they don’t always have to define us. That’s the great thing about life: we’re given the gift of a new day or a new year to redefine who we are, to change. I believe it is harder to morph the core of who we are, but it can be done. For me the core has remained largely consistent but as I worked to build my faith over the last few years I have seen a resurgence of the things I like about myself and a shrinking of those tendencies and traits I despise and which don’t serve me well, anyway.

2.      Focus on that which you can control. There is so much negative going on in the world that it is easy to feel like things are spinning out of control. What many people lose focus of is what you can control: your attitude and your reaction to what is happening around you. I’ve seen a growing deficit in personal responsibility – too many people feeling like victims. Put your big girl (or boy) pants on and deal with it. Bad things happen to everyone whether you see that or not. You can choose to give away your power to outside events and circumstances or you can elect to keep that control for yourself. If you haven’t read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, I highly recommend it. He was a concentration camp survivor and provides a disturbing story with an insightful look into the psyche that has the power to change your outlook and your life.

3.     Keep it all in perspective. In our interview this morning (which you can listen to or download here), Jim told a story about how he helped a CEO keep his business troubles in perspective. Indeed, I’ve found the best way to break out of a cycle of feeling overwhelmed by your own troubles is to help someone else. You’ll find that there are a lot of people who are worse off than you. Someone always has it worse and someone always has it better. Such is life. Getting out of yourself and helping someone else allows you to find things in your own situation you can be thankful for. As we do at our family dinner table, find at least one good thing in every day, even if it is the knowledge that the next day you get to start over.

Although the world and economy have seen better times, I wouldn’t trade where we are right now for anything. We’re exactly where we need to be. We can correct the things that haven’t worked in the past, refocus on the core of what is important, and look for new opportunities to expand and grow our horizons. Forget the New Years Resolution. Resolve to live each day as if it matters, because it does.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 10:46 am and is filed under Entrepreneurship, Work/Life Balance, business success secrets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.