Business as usual.  When’s the last time you’ve heard that old saying?  I’m willing to bet it’s been a while.  Nowadays business is anything but usual, and that’s fine by me because I never really subscribed to that philosophy to begin with.  There are so many components to business, and so many factors that affect it, that a “business-as-usual” mentality fundamentally goes against the very essence of what it takes to be successful.  Business has always been, and will always be, an ever-changing, ever-evolving, highly interactive and complex social activity combining a multitude of disciplines for the ultimate purpose of creating value between two or more parties.  There’s nothing usual about that, and if that’s true even during the good times, imagine how much more complicated it can be to run a successful business in difficult times such as these.

I can relate to what so many of you might be going through as this difficult year draws to a close because I’m right there in the trenches with you.  As you know by now, I don’t write this column as a journalist, or an analyst, or even a consultant.  Like you I’m an actual business owner and manager trying to close the next deal, struggling with the difficult decisions.  We bear a tremendous responsibility to our families, our employees, our employee’s families, our clients, and our society.  At times you may feel a bit overwhelmed – and I completely understand. Personally, though, I wouldn’t have it any other way.  No matter how difficult it may seem to navigate these tumultuous waters, the upside to owning my own business is far greater than the downside – especially in these times of change and need.  Where there’s a challenge, there’s an opportunity, and where there’s a problem, there’s a solution.  We need only to find them because where there’s a will there’s a way.  It’s all a matter of perspective. 

Over the next three weeks I will dedicate my blog entries to a three-part series simply titled, PERSPECTIVE.  As the sun sets on 2009 and rises on 2010, it is my hope that we can all gain, or maintain, the proper perspective toward business, life and what it truly means to be successful. 

Today’s entry, Part 1 of 3, is dedicated to the inspirational messages passed on to us by men and women who, like us, have endured their own share of challenges and have succeeded despite those challenges.  These are some of my favorite quotes because they help me keep things in perspective.

 

“We can throw stones, complain about them, stumble on them, climb over them, or build with them.” – William Arthur Ward.  Each and every one of us has this choice to make.  We face it daily.  Will we learn and grow from our experiences to build a better future for ourselves and those around us, or will we merely throw stones? 

 

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.  There was a time when I thought accepting finite disappointment meant certain defeat, until I realized that infinite hope does not accept defeat.  The road isn’t perfect.  The journey is never disappointment-free.  But infinite hope sustains us.

 

“Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what is still possible for you to do.” – Pope John XXIII.  Born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Pope John XXIII sent shock waves throughout the Holy See when he called the Second Vatican Council in 1962 to, “… open the windows of the Church and let in some fresh air.”  After the long pontificate of the beloved Pope Pius XII, Roncalli, who was already advanced in age, was selected as an interim, short-term pope to serve as a place holder for a more suitable choice.  Pope John XXIII had other plans.  With a sense of purpose and a clear vision for the future, Pope John XXIII transformed the Church and changed the world.

 

“Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl.  Every time I think that things just couldn’t get worse, or that the stress at work has reached an all-time high, or that the future is dark and bleak, I remember that Dr. Viktor E. Frankl scribbled this beautiful and profound statement on a piece of toilet paper as a prisoner of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.  Please.  Buy Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning, and read it over the holidays.  You can thank me later.

 

“The best is yet to be.” – Robert Browning.  Enough said.

Originally published in El Nuevo Herald

 

Tags: business, holidays, inspiration, Perspective

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