Originally posted – Oct 04, 2013
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” – Aristotle
In my view, the only thing perpetually common to your laundry business is you.
Customers come and go, attendants come and go, landlords come and go… even machines eventually come and go. Nothing is permanent in your business, while you own it – except you.
Therefore, logically, the way you react to business issues on a psychological level has a tremendous impact (in fact, very likely the most significant impact) on your degree of success, or the lack of it. By “psychological,” I mean both your intellectual and emotional reactions to your business, all that it represents and all of the day-to-day events it produces.
This article is about identifying the most common psychological reactions to events that impact us as laundry owners, with some practical advice (no psychoanalysis necessary) as to how to “get out of your own way” by better understanding how and why we react as we individually do to the many issues that small-business ownership constantly throws at us.
See if you recognize yourself in what follows:
Your Business Simply Makes You Anxious
Several business owners secretly experience some level of chronic anxiety. They often describe the feeling as a fear of impending disaster, which is not a very pleasant emotion. Anxiety is usually future-focused as if something bad is about to happen.
This is often caused by issues of concern that we are pushing out of our conscious minds instead of acknowledging them. Fears such as losing market share, having to replace machinery, being able to pay bills and feeling inadequate about developing effective advertising campaigns are common examples.
Having these concerns is normal, but suppressing them causes anxiety. So, the best way to avoid that nervous feeling is to confront these fears and deal with them on a proactive and very conscious level, which will greatly reduce that anxious feeling.
You will discover that you can effectively manage most of them. In fact, most of your fears likely will never materialize. Worry is like paying interest on a debt you don’t have. I have heard the word “FEAR” defined as False Expectations Appearing Real.
Mark Twain said, “I have been through some terrible things in my life – some of which actually happened.”
Dealing with Disappointment
Nobody goes through a life of business ownership totally undefeated. It’s definitely going to happen from time to time. Very positive thinkers in particular seem to react to disappointment with difficulty because they often live with an illusion of having extraordinary capabilities. Business owners need courage but certainly not illusions.
Feeling Helpless
Occasionally, the market or the weather or the economy or an individual just says, “No” – leaving us feeling helpless to proactively guide and control our business. This can be particularly stressful for you, the owner, if you are a controlling, take-charge type of individual, because it affects your self-esteem.
The way through these types of events is to focus on what you are gaining long term and not what you may think you are actually losing short term. Doing this will do wonders to restore your self-confidence, optimism and resilience.
Expecting Employees and Suppliers to Understand You
Managing employees and dealing with suppliers can be a daunting experience. Although you understand what you are saying, others, in your opinion, just don’t. Ever been there? I’m guessing you have.
Here’s the best technique for handling the problem. When people don’t seem to understand you, get them to feel what you are feeling. Put them in your place, and use analogies to create their empathy. Think of other situations that will make the person feel what you are feeling. The best analogies fit the specific individual’s personality and circumstances.
Getting Angry
We all get that way occasionally. The cause of anger is usually that you have been exposed to something that you consider to be unfair or unreasonable. When angry, be careful how quickly you express it. As Indira Ghandi said, “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
The best method to handle anger is to transcend your personal feelings and focus strongly on your values instead. Try to identify the principles (yours) that are being violated. Doing so will de-personalize it. Just respond from conviction and resist the urge to act impulsively.
A Tendency to Always Play It Safe and Avoid Taking Chances
This is common with small-business owners. This inclination can often be traced to childhood. Perhaps your parents were overly cautious and often said, “Don’t do that, or you’ll get hurt.” So, when you are tempted to take some chances as an adult, your inner emotional voice memory says, “If you do, you’ll be very sorry.”
When this occurs, you can feel very conflicted and uncomfortable (perhaps even angry), because on one hand you’re an adult dealing on an intellectual level but are held back by childlike fears that are often not logical or appropriate.
To constantly be preoccupied with looking where you’re going is motivated by fear, but to go where you are looking is to be motivated by confidence and anticipation of success. This is something you will have to work on if you have that particular problem, but it’s worth doing. I’m not suggesting that you take unrealistic chances but that you re-engineer yourself to being able to consider taking realistic chances when and if appropriate, without the accompanying paralyzing discomfort.
Behavioral research with older individuals repeatedly demonstrates that, in the final analysis, we regret not what we’ve done but what we’ve not done.
Taking Things Much Too Personally
Generally speaking, taking things too personally means incorrectly assuming a particular remark or action was definitely intended and meant to be hurtful to you. Most often they are not. And taking things too personally can be very bad for business as well.
The best advice is to not take things personally. Better yet, take them intellectually and react accordingly in a controlled fashion.
I love to use what I call the “React Opposite Rule.” In other words, react oppositely when criticized than the person doing the criticizing expects. If you do so, you will be literally amazed how easy the interaction becomes after that.
So, if you shoot from the head rather than from the hip, good things will happen. For example, if a customer says that your dryers “dry too slow,” rather than reacting in an angry fashion, thank her for her concern – and ask her to explain why she feels that way. What’s more, perhaps explain the technology of drying and factor in the normal required dry time based upon the nature of the items being dried.
The key is to make each person you are dealing with feel important. Show concern and curiosity about their issue. That’s all they really want in the first place. Don’t fail to consider the innocence of others and their true intentions.
Letting Fear Run Your Life
Being afraid is a common problem with small-business owners. They don’t often admit to this, but – trust me – it’s quite common.
Eleanor Roosevelt probably put it best when she said, “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop and look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”
Owning a self-service laundry business requires a degree of steady nerves and self-confidence. The answers to most of our questions are in our mirrors. We have no boards of directors or committee members to rely on and consult with.
Living with doubt rather than certainty is usually more profitable in the long run, but being an entrepreneur is essentially a lonely existence, which causes fears to develop in those of us who are easily predisposed to do so.
Fear makes people anticipate the distinct possibility of a second shoe falling. But it doesn’t have to be that way, especially if you stand up to your fears and take productive action. When a small-business owner gets wounded by the ups and downs of business events, it’s normal to be scared and to shrink into a protective mode of some kind.
However, feeling afraid doesn’t necessarily mean that you are in significant danger. Just because you feel vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re in a delicate situation. Just accept the fact that certain business (and life) events cannot be predicted or prevented. You’ve likely survived previous difficult situations, and you can survive the next one as well.
It’s interesting to note that being fearful and always expecting the second shoe to drop has its origins in childhood. If parents make too big of a deal about a child’s traumatic experience, the issue becomes a big one in the child’s eyes – and he will tend to avoid trying new things again. So, when as adults a new difficult event triggers that feeling buried in one’s psyche, he protects himself by constructing a psychological barrier and becomes preoccupied by the fear of a possibility of a recurrence.
Just knowing this on an adult intellectual level may provide some comfort and relief to you and permit you to function more happily along your business way.
Being a ‘Type A’ or a ‘Type B’ Personality
You’ve likely heard of this dichotomy: some people are “Type A” and some are “Type B,” which determine their individual nature in terms of how they react to the world. This applies to the entrepreneurial business world for sure and certainly how you lead and conduct your laundry business life.
The “A” and “B” designations were originated many years ago by Dr. Meyer Friedman, a San Francisco cardiologist.
Dr. Friedman began to notice similarities in his patients who were prone to heart disease. And it wasn’t just what these patients ate or their inherited genetic makeup that made them susceptible to physical illness.
As Dr. Friedman put it, “It was a specific set of personality characteristics, including excessive competition, drive, aggressiveness, impatience and an exaggerated sense of time urgency. Individuals displaying this pattern seemed to be engaged in a chronic, ceaseless and often fruitless struggle with themselves, with others, with circumstances, with time, sometimes with life itself.”
He called this behavioral pattern “Type A.”
On the other hand, according to Dr. Friedman, “Type B” people – although just as intelligent and frequently just as ambitious as Type “A” personalities – “were rarely harried by life or made hostile by its demands, but they wore their ambition differently. These folks also have a considerable amount of drive, but its character is such that it seems to steady them and give confidence and security rather than to goad, irritate and infuriate as with the ‘Type A’ person.”
The good doctor’s prescription and treatment for “Type A” people was to help them become more like “Type B” people.
Dr. Friedman, according to those who knew him, was definitely a “Type B” personality. In fact, his favorite saying was: “Make time your best friend.” Interestingly enough, he lived happily, comfortably, productively and calmly to the ripe old age of 90.
There’s a lesson there.
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