F Word Zen

I wrote a book many years ago called I'm Not Afraid of the F Word: 50 Lessons Learned on the Way to Business Failure, and it recounted all the mistakes that I'd made, um, and the lessons, the positive lessons that I'd learned on the way to losing this particular business, which was actually a family business. So I had to retrench family members and deal with all the financial fallout of that. And it was a very, very traumatic time. Uh, I wrote the book during all of that trauma. I didn't wait until I'd recovered to look back and pontificate over the, you know, the mistakes that I'd made or, you know, the bright decisions I'd made. But I wanted to write it right in the middle. In fact, a colleague of mine, I was posting it as a blog and a colleague of mine met me at a networking event and she said, Charlotte, when you wrote that chapter, were you crying? And I said, yes, I was. And she could tell that from the text. It's very raw. So raw, in fact, that I don't know, this is about 16, 17, 18 years later, I still become emotional when I look through the book and look at the lessons and I'm reminded of some of those circumstances. And I don't think it's still old wounds. I think it's just a huge dose of compassion for a person who went through something because of their own idealized picture of the future without taking the right kind of decisions and getting the right kind of support. And I haven't read the book again for a very long time, but I do remember some of the lessons quite specifically, one being eat the frog. You know, whatever is the thing you're putting off, that's the thing that's going to cause you a problem. Do it first thing in the morning. Nothing you do after that is going to be as bad. There's a whole lot of other lessons about, about networking with the right kind of people, getting the right kind of advice from people. Knowing your numbers, making sure that you actually know what is going on in your business. But the one lesson that I found to be really powerful that I think about very often is this one, and I think it was a Jim Rohn quote, but he said— the title is, find someone who will tell you the truth. Find someone who will tell you the truth about your business, your career, what it is that you're doing. Because very often we're supported by positive people. I'm a professional speaker. I hang out with motivational speakers all the time. These are the most optimistic, positive, engaged people that you can ever meet, and I'm surrounded by them all the time. And I do have a lot of respect for my colleagues, and I'm not suggesting that they do this, but there is a concept called toxic positivity, where you can just throw positive slogans around and assume that that's going to magically become a band-aid to whatever your problem is. But even amongst good, well-meaning friends, find someone who will actually tell you the truth about how you're showing up, what your brand looks like, how your business is doing. And in the updated introduction to the book that I just republished, I tell the story about one person like that who was at a networking meeting who had said, oh, business is okay, but it could be a little bit better. And then I spoke about my business failure and I spoke about the book. By the time I drove home, I had an email from her where she explained that business was not good at all. It was really bad. And some of the things that I'd said had triggered her and made her realize that she has to face this. And she was asking me for advice, and I was in no position to give any legal advice, but I did give this Take action now on your business before somebody takes action on you. So, you know, if lawyers are going to come, then you go to them first. So she did that, and I received an email from her a couple of weeks later, an email that I printed out and laminated and carried with me because it meant so much to me. And she said she, she's feeling very zen. She is sitting in her in her house and it's empty of possessions. She had retrenched her staff and helped them to find new jobs. She had retrenched her own daughters and helped them to find something else. She had made arrangements with all the people that her business owed money to, and then she had sold some of her own possessions so that she could settle these legal bills and other issues so that she could take control of what was happening to her business and her life. And she was shutting it down, but she was in control. Nobody was doing this to her, she had to make this decision. And it was really powerful. I'm so proud of her taking those steps and so grateful that she shared that with me. But in amongst that time when I was still learning this, I was at one of those networking meetings, quite a networking bunny at the time, and there was a financial advisor, a colleague of mine. I had met her in a couple of places. We became friends later on. But she was sitting with me and asking a few specific questions about my business, and I was trying to answer, but she was savvy, so she asked more specific questions. And eventually I started expressing what was really going on, and she said, pull the plug, you've got to do it, you know, this is where your business is going. And she didn't mince any words. She told me exactly what I needed to hear so that I would take that action so that I could later on pass it on to somebody else. Months and months later, I discovered that she was going through a terrible divorce at the time, a really traumatic time in her family life, but she was sitting there giving me the advice and the wisdom I needed to hear. And I'm not the kind of person who likes to give unsolicited advice to people, so I'm not suggesting that, but when you are engaged with somebody where you have a relationship and you can share that information, then let's tell the truth to each other. Let's not just smile and give the tired old motivational comments about, it's okay, you'll get over this. There's some serious consequences to losing a business, to facing issues like this, and we can face them. We can address our careers if we're employed somewhere else. We can learn the skills that we need to. We can make decisions to not overextend ourselves if there's somebody telling us the truth, and it might be a partner or a spouse, it might be somebody in the family, or it might be that you need to go to a professional that can tell you the truth. But we must stop lying to ourselves. One of the other lessons is don't believe your own PR. When you put marketing out, it's like, this is what the business can do and these are all my accomplishments and this is how I can help you. But also know that you have got to do certain things in your own life. You've got to deal with them. So don't believe your own PR. Find somebody to tell you the truth and take charge of your business and your career and don't Don't let those things slide that could become problems later on. Let this be the moment that you start paying attention to things. And if you'd like to find that book, it's on my website, charlottekemp.co.za. And I hope you never have to go through all of those 50 lessons, and I wish you all the best.