I take an unusual approach to helping people understand the balance sheet part of their accounts: I play the Talking Head's song "once in a lifetime", and explain how the lyrics actually explain how this strange set of numbers can be read and understood easily by anyone. And a core part of this activity is a lyric in the song - "how did I get here?".
But this isn't a post about accounts or David Byrne - instead, it's a roundabout why of introducing a question I was asked by an early-stage entrepreneur, as part of a Mindset for Success gathering that I was invited to speak at earlier this year. When they heard that I'd made it to 20 years (and in doing so, beaten the survival rate of 90% of all other businesses), they were keen to know how I'd managed it: "how did I get here?".
And it's a really good question - because as I reflect on my blog posts, annual impact reports, stories I've shared across the various podcasts I've been invited to guest on, I don't think anyone (including me) has ever really stopped to try and figure out what my 'magic fairy dust' is.
After all, if you've seen other posts I've made on my blog earlier this year, you'll have read the litany of everything I've had to endure and work through during these 2 decades - any one of which by themselves would be sufficient to kill off any business; yet I've managed to not only survive so many such critical moments, but also get to my porcelain anniversary too. So maybe there's something about how I work which might actually be quite relevant to any business?
In the session I offered a few off the cuff thoughts, but promised I'd come back to the question to try and better reflect on it, here on my blog.
So - I currently think that the reason(s) that I've made it this far are:
1) curiosity
I find myself always wondering 'why?' and 'why not?' - and on reflection realise that this has been important in stopping me from becoming complacent or stale in how I work and what I offer.
It's also meant that I've introduced new practices which have gotten me noticed more; helped me change my position on different topics and themes so I've been seen as even more credible and relevant by others; contributed to strengthening my resilience (both personally and professionally); and helped me make better sense of everything I get involved in, which has directly supported me to be able to maintain my motivation through some very trying episodes.
2) being a glass half empty guy
Normally, the person who looks at the glass and says it isn't half-full is labelled the pessimist (and therefore more likely to turn down opportunities, and otherwise miss out on life).
But my looking at the glass and seeing it as being half-empty doesn't stop there - I have an idea that what's important isn't what we see, but what we do because of how we see it: because I see the glass as being already half-empty, it means I'm always looking for the next tap (which also helps in trying to avoid complacency).
It also means that I invest more energy in contingencies (which some people will have heard me refer to as my 'professional paranoia'): because I see the glass as being already half empty, it means that I'll feel any unexpected shocks more greatly because there's less water in the glass to absorb the shock wave from it. And having a range of contingences (even if only half-formed), means I'm more confident in my resilience when things start to go off-track, and able to recover from/endure them more easily and quickly.
3) trying to say yes (not no) more
There's an 'accepted wisdom' offered by many self-proclaimed experts and coaches that we should all be trying to say 'no' more.
But I've always struggled with this, initially because of my parents.
My parents tried to instill a set of good manners in me as I was growing up - which included trying to be helpful, and offering to support people if they ask you nicely.
Over time, this has seen me developing possibly one of the most diverse portfolios of any business consultant / freelancer. And while this comes with its own challenges (how do I best summarise in 1 pithy sentence what it is I do and who its for, when I work with national government departments on new national policy initiatives one day, and a consortium of market traders the next?), it's also meant I've found myself stretching my skills and comfort zones in ways that I wouldn't otherwise have even considered trying to (or seeing the benefit of). This has been really important for how I've kept my business going for this long - because I've fingers in different types of pies, it means that if one type of work/sector/etc starts to slow down, there there's usually another that I can focus more on to keep the lights on.
It's also meant that I was well ahead of the curve when the first lockdowns hit in March 2020, based on the number of national bodies who immediately enlisted my support to remodel how they work and redeliver their respective programmes and services in the world of zoom - up to that point, video calls and events were very niche and usually avoided by many, but I'd been asked to volunteer host a national body's monthly on-line meetups that were held over zoom several years prior. This meant I'd had lots of opportunities to play with/think about how to make this format best work for as many people and circumstances as possible.
4) always looking for escape exits
I have an idea that if you know how you'd be able to quickly exit a situation, contract, etc with the least amount of blood on the carpet, it can help you take more risks - you find you enjoy it more, because you're not worrying about what might happen if things start to go wrong. And you're not worrying because you've already looked at the glass as being half empty, worked out what the major risks might be and put things in place against them, so if things do start to go off-track, you know which glass to break to active your remedy to it.
Taking more risks also means you're confident to push things further; and the more we try new things, the more unexpected and exciting things can start to happen.
5) enduring more than my fair share of crises
- have greater self-awareness (which can help avoid the Dunning-Kruger effect)
- improving your psychological health (so enjoy greater mental well-being)
- better understand, and work with, others
- enhance self-management (really important if you're a freelancer or self-employed, like me)
- better decision making
As well as the benefits that these would offer to any business, each of these is also recognised as helping people to better manage stress (which might also explain how the long-term stresses I live and work with aren't notably affecting my professional judgements, as evidenced by my business still being here 20 years on?). And pro-actively trying to manage stresses are important, because unmanaged stress can lead to a propensity to make more mistakes; make it hard to think clearly; and cloud your sense of what you're trying to build for the long-term, which leads to demotivation, despair, and closing your business.
So Kemi Bowley, this is the fuller response I promised you in that Mindset for Success session - the reasons I think my business has outlast 90% of all others are:
- I'm curious;
- I try and be pessimistic;
- I try and say yes to everything;
- I'm always looking for a way out;
- and in enduring everything that's tries to knock my business/me over, I've created new models of resilience.
To everyone else reading this, I'd be interested to know what it is that you think has helped your business get to the age it is today (especially when so many businesses that start will be gone within the first 36 months of their launching).
