Bouncing Out of This Recession

The thing about business books is that they tend to be practical, appealing to the left-brain thinker who can use a system or process to advance forward with 'steps' that can be followed in a logical manner to get a certain result. n Well, in my opinion, Barry Moltz breaks from that mold with his book,n nBounce: Failure, Resiliency, and Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success.n nBounce is a book about dealing with trying times and developing business confidence and resiliency so that you become stronger as a result of the challenges that you face. n One of the really neat things about Barry's style is that he writes about - and talks about in his public speaking - his failures. Barry's large point is that sometimes failures teach us valuable lessons - but sometimes they do not. Sometimes failure just plain stinks and has no lesson to teach. Either way, it does not matter. The important part is not to invest too much time looking for the lesson in any one (or a series) of failures. The point is that life and business don't move in a linear direction - there are twists and turns and pauses on the way to business success. Today's economic challenges are a pause - nothing more, nothing less. And being able to have this perspective keeps you focused on the longer-term objectives for your practice and keeps you moving forward with confidence. This is true resiliency. And it is a lot easier said than done to take these steps. Moreover, as I discuss below, if you have not been resilient yourself, then how can you help a business owner to be so while assisting them with the exit from their business? You see, as Barry brilliantly discusses in his book, the real problems develop not when we face adversity, but when we get stuck in a negative way of thinking. When we take the challenges of the outside world and allow them to impact our decision-making process, we begin to move further from our goals. We become gun shy, complacent, and downright afraid of taking any risk whatsoever. Well, as Barry highlights, life and business is risk. You cannot remove it because you don't want to deal with it any more - it is simply not possible. Instead, you need to develop resiliency and begin to 'bounce' forward - to 'Bounce' out of this mindset. Barry's insights are sown throughout this book in a way that draws upon example after example of entrepreneurs who have utilized the concepts - which Barry identifies as Building Bands (like those on a ball of rubber bands) - to develop bullet-proof business confidence. Barry identifies 10 Building Bands that one can follow to analyze their situation and achieve this confidence. The following Building Bands require some self-examination so that you can identify areas where you may be stuck and begin to move past them:n

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1. Your environment and cultural DNA
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2. Humility
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3. Facing [hidden] Fears of Failure
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4. Giving up shame
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5. Understanding that failure gives you choices
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6. How to make smarter decisions to become a better risk taker
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7. Valuing process over outcome
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8. Setting patient goals for what success and failure will look like
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9. Creating your own measurement system for success
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10. Valuing action - almost any action [over lethargy and defeat]
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nBounce delves into each of these 10 Building Bands in a way that really engages the mind into examining what may be holding someone back. By reading Barry's book and speaking with him, I saw that this is invaluable advice for the advisor who is working with business owners to get them to move forward with their exit planning (and it is also great advice for the advisor who is still feeling stuck themselves). n Remember that one of Pinnacle's main criteria for establishing an exit plan for a business owner is 'mental readiness'. Accordingly, Barry's book is a great tool that I personally will be using with certain business owners to complement Chapter 3 of my book - The Mental Game of Business Exits - and to get these owners to 'Bounce' into their Exit Planning.n n© John M. Leonettin