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How Dealing with Death Makes You a Better Business Owner

    

My father passed away in my first year of my new business, I suffered from depression & had mounting financial pressure, here's how I 'Stella' got his groove back.

Written by Ben Angel 2009, Topics:   Personal Development / Business Development / Working in Isolation

If you’re anything like most business owners, you’re a real person. What, that’s crazy?! 

Business owners just like the rest of the human race face the same emotional turmoil as everyone else, except of course when a key factor is added into the picture. And that factor is isolation. 

Sometimes the only person you have to talk to is a tropical fish that stares blankly at you through the plate glass whilst blowing bubbles in an attempt to say; “Feed me!” 

What do you do? 

Go stir crazy? Or comfort yourself with Oprah and Dr Phil? 

You do neither. You get on with the job. But what if the pressure of isolation and other challenges start piling up and you begin to encounter some of the following; 

• Added financial pressure of sustaining a business through economic turmoil;
• A kid in the background who won’t ‘go and play in traffic’ and insists on reeking havoc in your home office
• The emotional turmoil of a relationship that should have been put to bed years ago;
• Or the incomprehensible reality of losing a loved one? 

You do the best you can with what you’ve got!

Four years ago today my dad at the age of 51 passed away from a brain tumour. I was devastated. I had just set up a brand new business, was dealing with a relationship break-down and was attempting to deal with mounting financial pressure at the same time. I was 23 years old and I was not coping at all.

Burying my father was a tipping point for me. I became depressed and was suffering in silence whilst everyone else thought I was fine. Every time I had a client meeting, hosted a business event or schmoozed at a networking event I put on my ‘perky’ persona and turned up the charm. 

On the outside I was bright and sparky and working hard to give the impression that I had everything together whilst on the inside everything was falling apart. 

How do you deal with your personal life whilst you’re trying to build your business? 

You do the best you can with what you’ve got. Being a typical male and an Aries, I am one of the most stubborn people you will ever meet. This is partly to blame due to growing up on a farm in which we were always taught to fix things ourselves. A fantastic skill to have, especially when it comes to fixing your own personal life. 

How Stella Got ‘His’ Groove Back... 

One day when I’d had enough, I pulled out all of my personal development books and started reading. I read each night for at least one hour and then again for twenty minutes each morning. This ended my day on a good note and began it on an even better one. I turned off all of the music that made me feel depressed and I ate foods that were healthy and avoided foods that made me feel lethargic. I hit the gym six days a week and took regular classes to bust out of my rut and most importantly, I made a conscious decision moment to moment on how I ‘chose’ to feel. 

Was it all an effort?

Absof*&^%kinglutely!

Was it required? Even more so!

We do not always get to choose the situations we are faced with but we can choose how we respond to each one moment by moment.

Working in isolation can be very damaging, especially if you are unaware of your own self-sabotaging behaviours. By becoming aware of how you respond to specific situations you can immediately shift the reactions to responses and begin to become productive once again. It unearths self-sabotaging patterns so you can deal with them. But sometimes, just sometimes we need a wakeup call.

Excuse me Mr Angel this is your wakeup call! You’re in Denial!

One of my best friends woke me up to this. He told me I was in denial and that I was avoiding facing reality. It felt like a punch in the back of the head but boy oh boy did it wake me up to make the changes I so desperately needed to make. 

Are you in denial in your life right now in relation to your business and how you’re managing it? If you are it’s time to snap out of it and do ‘whatever it takes’ to bring about balance. No matter how you feel you may be suffering right now there are always worse things that could happen.

The thing about death and losing a loved one is that it wakes us up to life. It makes you a better business owner because you really do learn not to sweat the small stuff. The things that I thought were important weren’t important at all and wasted my time and energy. This realisation allowed me to once again come back to basics and focus only on the things that really mattered. At the end of the day that was my own happiness and enjoying and loving the process of building an interesting and fulfilling life and business. 

What do you need waking up to?

Are things really as hard as you make them out to be? Death puts things into perspective and if you are self employed and work from home isolation can amplify it, but the question I want to ask you is; do you really need to lose someone important to you to find out that the small stuff really doesn’t matter?

I trust not. Change the script and start telling a different story. Trust me when I say it’s worth it because it is ‘worth’ it more than you could ever believe and that I could ever express in the written word. Both you and your business will be better off for it.

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.Ben Angel is the author of the brand new controversial book, ‘Sleeping Your Way to The Top in Business – The Ultimate Guide to Attracting & Seducing More Customers.’ Grab your copy today by visiting www.benangel.com.au    

Copyright Ben Angel 2009

Posted by Ben Angel on 20th October, 2009 | Comments (1) | Trackbacks
Tags: sleeping your way to the top in business, professional speaker, professional speaker melbourne, motivational speaker, dealing with death

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Comments

Thanks Ben...

Thanks Ben, your article came at a good time. I recently lost a loved one. I appreciate your honesty in sharing. Something that in my case has really helped. Thank you. Sally

Posted on 7 November, 2009 by Sally

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