" Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way"
Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
While working with Entrepreneurs I found that having a great attitude is an important, if not a must, virtue for success.
In this post I want to shed some light on this topic. This post gives you the tools to be an owner and to be happy.
As we see in the quote above, Victor Frankl said it in very simple and meaningful way.
Stephen Covey, in his must-read book “The seven habits of highly effective people” talks about it in a different way - the circle of influence and the circle of concern. Knowing the difference between the two makes a huge different.
Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher said it in a very compelling way:
“Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.”
The serenity prayer offers a similar message:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”
They are all saying the same thing, and they are wise. Practicing it may be difficult and may require new habits and rituals.
Being a business owner requires you to practice this daily.
This Scenario is an example of a current situation:
You are an owner of a new business. You opened it two years ago. It was profitable. Life was good, and then Covid19 happened.
It is tough. You are blaming everyone: covid19, the government, the health authorities and who ever you can blame.
This is not helping you. These are all out of your influence circle. What you can do is to be proactive, do your best, learn, read, try, fail, try again, fail again, try more and WORK ON your business to take it to where it can be and should be.
You are not guaranteed to always succeed, but when you know you gave it your all, you can feel better about it.
Most likely that you will be more successful than your competitor who is not doing anything but complaining rather than acting.
In 2008, there was a big world crisis. My daily newspaper wrote about the crisis daily. It made me feel uneasy. My coaching business was doing great and was not influenced by the crisis. Reading the black predictions did not help me. Nothing I could do about it. Oh yeah, one thing I could do was to cancel my subscription. Why do I need to read all the negativity every day?
You do the same – less news, blogs, and other influencers, they are not helping you to be positive. Choose what you read carefully.
In a way, we can also call this behavior – Choose your attitude.
Victor Frenkel wrote about that in his book Man’s Search for Meaning.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Can you see the pattern between the Stoics, Frankl and Covey?
The one thing you can and must do is work on yourself. Shift your perspective, be proactive. Choose your attitude. We can’t change others and we have no power on events that occur from time to time.
One of Emyth core perspectives is that the business is a reflection of you.
When you are working ON your business and also working ON yourself, that will help you grow as a person, as a leader and then to grow your business.
This Emyth article says it nicely Your business is you—for better or worse.
" True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so, wants nothing. "
Seneca
On a personal note, I would like to share one of my poems that is relevant to this post. Enjoy.
Be Happy
To be Happy -
Is an attitude
To enjoy
Is a choice
Even when it is hard and annoying
and you feel like you want to scream,
Choosing an attitude,
is the right thing.
Always when you forget it, life sends you a small and Painful
reminder,
Which gives you proportions and let you have a second chance -
To see the Positive, get inspired by happiness, embrace a smile.
So, I sit calmly, relaxed as I choose
to Be Happy
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