Originally posted – Apr 12, 2013
“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never go into business because we’d be too cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”
– Annie Dillard, American author and Pulitzer Prize winner
The galvanizing opening few lines in psychiatrist Dr. M. Scott Peck’s best-selling book, “The Road Less Traveled,” are: “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth we transcend it. Because once it’s accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
Hey… thanks, doc. That really takes the pressure off. We can all breathe a little bit easier now.
Let’s substitute the words “owning a business”for the word “life”in Dr. Peck’s opening line. Yes, owning a business is difficult because it is a part of life and, therefore, once we understand and accept that it’s difficult, it no longer matters because we shouldn’t expect otherwise.
One significant (perhaps the most significant) reason why owning a business is difficult is because it can also be risky depending, of course, upon how you view, tolerate and define risk.
And that’s exactly what this article is about – the psychological underpinnings of risk-taking in business. Helping you learn about how and why you react to risk on a conscious and unconscious level, as well as how it dramatically affects your level of success.
Let’s put risk into a realistic, workable perspective. Earth, we’re told, is about 4.5 billion years old. If you live to be 85, your life span represents about one-millionth of 1percent of the Earth’s age. The point is that your guest shot here on the planet is a heck of a short performance. So, it might be a good idea, since life is relatively short, to “order dessert first”because you never know what’s going to happen.
Since that’s the case, why not take some risks? My view is that, if you don’t take some chances, you actually take the biggest chance because you could simply run out of your most valuable currency – time – to achieve and actualize yourself.
Mark Twain once said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
What Twain said is great in theory, but for many of us it’s not always easy to do.
One of the most fascinating subjects within the scope of the study of human behavior is the psychology of risk. Risk, in one form or another, affects and surrounds each and every one of us every day in all aspects of our lives. We live with it, deal with it and react to it in our own individual ways.
As a small-business owner, the manner in which you process and deal with risk has a major influence on what you achieve or don’t achieve. The chances you take determine how successful you are or are not, or can become – as well as how comfortable or uncomfortable you are during the process.
Our individual reaction to risk is determined by our “world view.” And our world view is, quite simply, how we as individuals – rightly or wrongly – perceive, view and react to the world. It provides the answers to the many questions we privately ask ourselves.
To a great extent, our world view is originally shaped by significant events (pleasant, unpleasant, very good and very bad) experienced in our upbringing. It’s a large part of our personality. It’s who we are in relation to how we consistently relate with and react to the world around us.
It matters a lot. A whole lot.
We all react to risk differently. Some of us avoid it totally. On the other hand, some of us actively seek it out, even to the extreme.
Remember an unusual gent named Evel Knievel? This fellow took great physical risks (and achieved some great successes) on a regular basis on his motorcycle. He even attempted (although didn’t quite make it) to “fly”across Idaho’s Snake River Canyon in a one-person, makeshift rocket. Knievel turned his love of taking risks into a highly paid entertainment occupation.
Former President George Herbert Walker Bush willingly parachuted out of an airplane at age 85. And, on July 20, 1969, American astronaut Neil Armstrong risked stepping onto the surface of the moon, with absolutely no guarantee he would be able to safely return to Earth.
Psychologically, most of us prefer a degree of safety to risk-taking. That certainly sounds logical, but it can also be detrimental to achieving success as small-business owners. Behavioral research has repeatedly shown that most people are willing to accept a degree of risk to avoid loss but have a built-in tendency to avoid risks while seeking gain.
In other words, a small-business owner would be more willing to assume a greater risk not to lose $1,000 than he or she would to gain $1,000. That’s just the way folks are constructed.
The very essence of business ownership involves risk-taking, and how you deal with and manage your risks – to a great extent – defines the line between your degree of success or the lack of it.
To help you feel more comfortable taking proper risks, let’s get back to your world view.
Once you know and understand how you automatically internally view the world, you can do some “inner work”to learn to react more appropriately to the reality of your current adult situation – rather than in terms of the part of your psyche that was carried forward into your world view from childhood, yet is no longer appropriate or realistic.
Risk-taking doesn’t mean exposing yourself to major danger. It means letting go of past habits and values that lock you into fixed and rigid ways of relating to the world. Although such reactions perhaps were useful when you were a child, many are no longer necessary now that you are an adult.
Your earlier habits of thought and behavior can’t see reality as it truly is now in your adult world. They are automatic thinking patterns stored in your psychic banks, rooted in the false belief that the past will be repeated. Therefore, to continue to respond as an adult in ways in which you learned as a child can be completely inappropriate to your current situation – and, in fact, can become counterproductive, self-fulfilling prophecies.
Here are some typical examples of those fearful internal voice messages that so many small-business owners (and others, of course) hear and often pay attention to – messages that essentially tell to you to “watch out, you’ll fall down and hurt yourself,” and that needlessly hold you back from taking proper chances:
- “Be very sensitive to the opinions of others.”
- “Have the need for excessive approval.”
- “Make sure you over-comply with rules.”
- “Be overly perfectionistic.”
- “Constantly feel self-doubt.”
- “Get very anxious when you have to make a decision.”
- “Always require excessive information.”
- “Make sure you fear all possible imaginable catastrophes.”
- “Hold tight to your egotistical pride.”
- “You always have to be in control.”
- “Be embarrassed over every imagined failure.”
- “Always need standing ovations.”
Do any of these “conversations”sound familiar?
Present situations trigger these types of reactions, which may have been developed and may have been partly or perhaps totally appropriate in some form in your childhood past but now are maladaptive because they limit your freedom to choose your reaction to the objective present as an adult.
The key is to acknowledge and face your fears, and walk through them. Simply admitting the fear is often an effective tool for reducing and eliminating it.
There’s no need to feel compelled to retreat at the first sign of discomfort or distress. You can learn to ride out these often uncomfortable emotions until you’re in a calm space and can manage your risk by the actions you take in the present.
You need to work to acknowledge, ignore and abandon the detrimental childlike aspects and responses of your world view and replace them with realistic adult actions. Believe me, it’s worth the effort, because when you experience the benefits and results of being free to take proper risks, you won’t miss the “old you.” You’ll achieve a lot more and be much more stress-free.
Being able to take suitable risks is your chance to stand out by developing marketing programs, management techniques and advertising that will draw the appropriate amount of applause.
Guess what your coin laundry ideally should have in common with all other laundries. Nothing! And this uniqueness will only result from taking some risks.
After all, it’s not the ticket buyers’ anticipation of hearing the string section in the orchestra that packs the house. It’s their desire to hear the featured violinist play the incredibly unique and beautiful solo.
#Public #PlanetLaundry #CustomerService #TheBusinessMind #BusinessManagement #Article
