I’m always surprised when I hear the advice, don’t take business personally. It’s ‘just a business decision’.
My response?
Horseradish!
Ok, I’d prefer to use another term here, but I’m keeping it clean!
After years of working in an impersonal corporate setting where so much bad behavior was excused by saying, ‘it’s just business’, I am delighted and pleased to tell you that you have an alternative.
You can take everything about business personally!
Taking business personally creates success for you, for your clients, and for your staff.
It moves business into a whole other realm, the realm of connection. Connecting with yourself, with your clients, and also with your staff, if you have people working with you.
Let’s not go down the well-worn path of pretending to be impersonal. You can instead choose the creative path of making everything personal!
A business is all about the people who make it come alive: entrepreneurs, clients, staff. If you as an entrepreneur do not take your businesses personally, then you risk abdicating responsibility for your decisions.
Your decisions about how you treat clients and staff, and even yourself, become disconnected from who you are as a person, because you can blame it all on, ‘it’s just a business decision’.
Do you want to be a connected entrepreneur? I sure do! Chances are, if you want business success, you do too.
Here’s a quick 1-2-3 on how to stay connected:
1. Be clear. When you are clear within yourself about what your goals are, your vision, you can make the appropriate choices from that place. Being present to where you are and where you want to go gives you access to an amazing inner guidance system. That allows you to make decisions from that very personal place within yourself.
2. Be responsible. Sound a little boring, or even a little scary? Here’s where we get to redefine responsibility – it’s the ability to respond. Response-ability. You are able to respond in a way that you choose, a way that is true to you. Clarity helps, but ultimately your business hinges on the action that you decide to take. Make that action conscious, by taking each decision personally.
3. Be yourself. You are the ultimate compass for your business. You as the owner decide on the vision, the goals, AND how the business operates every single day. You get to have the best day at work ever, if you define what you value, what’s personally important for you, and act authentically out of that place. That’s also what sets you apart.
Being an entrepreneur is an ongoing challenge – remaining true to yourself while managing the day-to-day of your company, dealing with a lot of different people, serving your clients.
Yes, it’s a challenge.
AND you can do it without abandoning yourself and who you came here to be.
When you are called to make a tough choice, own it! Nobody but you is making this decision, and it is always for a myriad of reasons.
That’s at least partly why you choose to be an entrepreneur – you choose to bring the whole of yourself into the world, into your work, into your life.
It’s not always easy, but it is so worth it!
So which are you going to choose? Living fully, with your whole self, in everything you do? Or defaulting to ‘just business’?
Consciously ask yourself, is this choice a true expression of me as I choose to be in the world?
Once you’ve considered that, you can step up, make your choice with clarity, and stand behind it as your personal decision.
Your own clarity translates directly into business success. Your clarity becomes a beacon, a guide, a sentinel for you as you move forward.
People won’t necessarily like your decision, but as long as you stay connected to yourself, you can stay strong in your clarity, knowing you have brought your whole self into your decision and your business.
You know that it’s all personal.
You act out of who you came here to be.
And ultimately, that’s the best business decision.
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Can you relate? I’d love to hear your experiences!
Anything you might do differently in your business if you took it personally?
Leave a comment and tell us about it.