Written by: Mark Newey, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Coming out of a Crisis. According to a Harvard Business Review survey, only 10% of companies thrive and grow coming out of a crisis. The difference between the 10% and the 90%? The mental wellness and mindset of the entrepreneur. We’re currently coming out of what is probably the biggest crisis since World War 2. So, now’s not the time to batten down the hatches; that’s what the 90% do!
Running a Business is stressful
The thing is, running a business is stressful at the best of times. In fact, a study by small business insurance provider Simply Business carried out in May 2022, showed that 60% of SME owners reported feeling stressed, 53% suffered from anxiety and 30% with depression.
What does this mean for the Business Owner?
The reality of a small business is that the owners work crazy hours, they’re wearing 15 different hats and constantly having to make rapid but critical decisions. It can also be lonely, as the buck stops with you. Money struggles are always hovering in the background. In fact, according to the Simply Business survey, an incredible 87% of small businesses lost money over the pandemic.
This environment inevitably has huge effects on the entrepreneur’s stress levels. They’re not sleeping well. Their work/life balance is out of whack, which puts pressure on relationships with loved ones. Stress seems to come with the job description.
What is the most important Asset of any Business?
It’s simple: it’s the business owner. The problem is that science shows that when we’re stressed our cognitive capacity drops by 40%: that’s our ability to focus, to concentrate, make good decisions and think clearly. In other words, if we’re stressed as a business owner, then we’re operating at 60%; this is not good for the business as its most important asset.
Why it’s essential to invest in ourselves as Business Owners
With modern life being as chaotic, pressurised and demanding as it is, most of us have come to think of stress as being OK or even normal…just part of modern life! We need to suck it up and get on with it!
But stress is not OK; it’s not normal!
As entrepreneurs, it is essential that we have clarity of mind: we need to be able to think clearly and to concentrate. More than that, we need to be motivated, passionate and even excited…the way we were when we started. We need to be grounded and to thrive.
But most of us have never learned how to be grounded, how to remain calm, and how to cope when under pressure. We don’t know how to retain the passion and the excitement.
The solution is extremely personal: it’ll differ drastically from person to person. The secrets to this invaluable mindset run very deep within each of us.
The 7 Steps to Radical Self-Discovery
What is Radical Self-Discovery?
As business owners, our company’s biggest asset is ourselves. We know all about our products, our customers, our production processes, and our industries, but we know very little about ourselves. We all know that people buy people and the more authentic you are, the more natural charisma you have, the more likely people are to buy from you.
We didn’t study self-development at school, let alone mental wellness and emotional intelligence. Those of us who have already done self-development work, have done it purely with the objective of bettering ourselves. What we haven’t done, is dig deep to find out who we are and build a rock-solid sense of identity.
This grounded sense of self is the single most important platform for living a fulfilled life and building a dynamic, thriving business which genuinely ignites our passion and makes an impact on the world we live in.
Step 1: Practical Brain Science 101
Only 9% of our mind is conscious; therefore 91% of how we create our reality on a moment-by-moment basis is unconscious and we know nothing about our Unconscious. Understanding the filtering process our mind goes through every second, tells us a huge amount about how we think and why and how we experience stress and burnout. And it’s not rocket science!
Step 2: Stop Stress
Now that you have the bigger picture of how your mind works, it’s time to explore stress in more detail: what it is, what function it serves, how it works and how to stop it, so that you can regain a clear head and the energy to really fire up your business and the people it serves.
Step 3: Emotional Intelligence 101
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you. People with a high degree of emotional intelligence know what they're feeling, what their emotions mean, and how these emotions can affect other people.
For leaders, having emotional intelligence is essential for success. After all, who is more likely to succeed – a leader who shouts at his team when he's under stress, or a leader who stays in control, and calmly assesses the situation?
Step 4: Find Your Purpose and your Passion
As business owners, our business is our reason to get out of bed every morning: it’s our passion. But very few of us have articulated what the purpose embedded within our business actually is. It’s written in our personal values and in our emotional D.N.A.
Articulating it, not only helps us to constantly connect with it and motivate ourselves, but it also allows other key stakeholders (staff, customers) to buy into it too. There’s a Chinese proverb that says: “If you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life.”
Step 5: Identity: Be You
Discovering who we are and being utterly comfortable with being that person, transforms our world…literally! Being authentic allows us to drop the mask that we all wear, worrying about what people think about us. This saves us a huge amount of mental energy, helps us to look forwards with positivity, improves our relationships and clarifies our thinking.
Step 6: Self-Empowerment and Energy
The revelation of a deep sense of self is extremely empowering: it unlocks your energy at a different level. No more doubting and double-checking: just the courage to find your own path and steer your business forward with certainty and excitement.
Step 7: Charisma and Success
The words used to describe successful entrepreneurs are charismatic, driven, purposeful and dynamic; they have the confidence and clarity to make good decisions and take action fast. This can only be learned and reproduced reliably through genuinely deep level self-awareness.
If you would like a no-obligation virtual 30-minute coffee break chat to explore further how Radical Self-Discovery can genuinely transform your life and your business, please don’t hesitate to contact me from my website.You can also follow me on LinkedIn.
Mark Newey, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Mark Newey is a Protagonist and Disruptor, empowering small business owners to totally transform their company's biggest asset: themselves. Running a business is stressful, especially in today's environment: if we are stressed, our cognitive capacity drops by 40%, which means we are operating at 60% efficiency. Mark has distilled 22 years of experience from his own breakdown and working with 3000 clients (of whom 1200 were small business owners) into a foolproof system: The 7 Steps to Radical Self-Discovery. Only 10% of companies thrive and grow coming out of a crisis. The difference between the 10% and the 90%? The mindset of the entrepreneur.
