Starting your own business is to take an unforgettable journey to the Land of Mir-Oz.

Many new entrepreneurs will point to a turbulent event or period in their life – a tornado if you will – that precipitated their decision to go out on their own. That tornado could be a job layoff, an illness, a divorce, children moving out of the house, or simply the undeniable calling to purpose that can be ignored no longer.

Sound familiar?

The swirling turmoil of that tornado kicks up the dust of your black and white world, until the critical decision point lands you – THUMP! – in the middle of a brand new Technicolor world of your own making.

You emerge, blinking and bewildered, into Munchkinland for the Self-Employed, wondering at the newness, the color, the bright details all around you. You mean I don’t have to startle awake to an alarm clock every morning? I can trade in the suits for sweats? I can go out for a grande extra hot half-caff caramel macchiato whenever I want to??

Your journey begins with much pomp and circumstance, as the people around you rejoice in your initiative and worship your bravery, even as you protest that it’s “no big deal.” You look back with a small shudder at the remnants of your old life, crushed under the weight of your bold decision. Then, smiling, you grab your modest basket and furry traveling companion and skip forward toward the Land of Mir-Oz. You’re told that the yellow brick road is the path that will lead you to that Mecca of Success.

But you barely get going when you suddenly meet your nemesis, as surprising and frightening as any fairy tale witch: Your Own Self-Doubt. What was I thinking? Can I really do this? What if I lose my way and don’t make it? That Witch is green and ugly and throws balls of fire! Then, just like that, she is gone again. With a lump in your throat, you renew your resolve, gainfully pick up your basket and little dog and continue down the golden path.

Along the way you pick up “quests” to keep you company on your journey. The first is a search for Brains – the skills, knowledge, and tools to make it to Mir-Oz. You subscribe to guru newsletters; you buy “how to get a gazillion clients” audio programs; you take courses on selling and marketing and networking and what have you to help you find the path, to feel more confident that you’re going the right way.

You also pick up the search for a Heart – the ability to consistently tap into your passion and enthusiasm for your work and for your clients, even when the way is dark and forested. Over and over you go inward, searching for confirmation that you are on the right track, serving the right people, doing the right thing. And you are so often unsure of the answers. But then a friend’s kind word or a client’s inspiring testimonial reminds you why you love what you do, and you hear the faint beating of that heart, warming you and urging you forward.

And then comes the quest for Courage. Far away from your adoring fans in Munchkinland, you start feeling very small and insignificant. You compare yourself (always unfavorably) to the few who have made it “big”; you feel queasy thinking about the legions of business owners who have tried and failed; you feel unworthy to face the Wizard of Mir-Oz who is already all-powerful and all-successful. Who am I to think I can build a lucrative business? Do I really have what it takes to make it all the way to Mir-Oz? Even bleak, dusty “Kansas” starts to look good, especially when the Wicked Witch of Self-Doubt makes a sudden guest appearance. (I’ll get you, my Pretty! And your little dog too!)

And still you move on down that yellow brick road. Things start to get easier, the road opens up, and – Hurray! – you see Mir-Oz on the horizon. At this point, however, you may become lulled into opiate complacency by a string of clients; or rusted in place with residual ambivalence and fear. But the Emerald City still awaits, that land of green and shimmering beauty where you will soon arrive and be granted all the brains, heart, and courage you need to make your business flourish.

The Land of Mir-Oz is now in front of you, heralding a new level of success in your business. You become recognized, clients show up by referral, your appearance is sought after, and you are primped and courted by admirers – in short, you truly feel you have arrived.

Yet imagine your surprise when the door to Success doesn’t open to you automatically! You may be granted audience with the Great and Powerful Mir-Oz of Success, but he commands you to face the Wicked Witch of Self-Doubt head on in an epic battle, flying monkeys and all. You tremble and waver, yet stubbornly commit to melting Self-Doubt once and for all, setting yourself and your business free to succeed, with victory waiting for you back in Mir-Oz.

With all you have gathered along your journey, you face the Witch and learn that, as scary as she seems, she is actually quite vulnerable, easily destroyed by a single act of bravery (and a bucket of water). You return triumphant, broomstick in hand, ready for the great Mir-Oz to hand you your glory. But wait! What?? There is no Mir-Oz of Success? Nope, just a Mir-age. The Great and Powerful Wizard turns out to be just another human being, much like you, except he found his way to Mir-Oz more by adventure and accident than hard work and persistence. And he feels like a humbug because of it.

But, in the end, he grants you the greatest gift of all – the knowledge that you already have the Brains, the Heart, and the Courage to succeed as a business owner. These things were with you and in you all along. They are what accompanied you down the yellow brick road, what comforted you through the dark forest, and what helped you fight the Wicked Witch of Self-Doubt to her death.

So now, instead of waking up from this dream and finding yourself back in Kansas, you realize that your true home is on the Yellow Brick Road. That it leads far beyond the Land of Mir-Oz, taking you to new adventures and higher levels of success. And that you have everything you need to continue your journey where it takes you to build the business of your dreams.

The road to wisdom? Well, it’s plain
And simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again,
but less
and less
and less.

Recently my husband and I watched “Les Triplettes de Belleville” on TV, a very quirky animated movie about an eccentric grandmother who rescues her kidnapped cyclist grandson with the help of three former vaudeville triplets. We had seen it in the theater in 2003, but I remembered almost nothing about the movie; I had only the vaguest memories of the setting, plot, and characters. Seeing it again, much of it was unfamiliar. Considering there are movies I saw decades ago where I can still recall many scenes line for line, I found this a bit distressing.

Interestingly, my husband pointed out to me that this movie is completely without dialogue. Everything’s communicated through gestures, expressions, scenery, sound effects, and action. And it dawned on me that, for me, recalling a movie like this is much like remembering what happened before age 2-1/2 or 3, when I didn’t have much language to speak of (literally).

I’ve always been pretty verbal, but the fact that language is so tied into my memory was a revelation. You’ve probably heard about how some people are visual, some auditory, and some kinesthetic (tactile) in the way they process information — it’s a fundamental principle of neurolinguistic programming (NLP). Realizing how much the delivery of a message relates to memory and recall gave me a new appreciation for understanding the way my clients think. If I communicate information in a way that’s easy for them to grasp, not only will they “get” my message in the moment, but they are more likely to retain that message over time. And this is critical in building long-term relationships with clients, and providing services that people might not want right now, but may need sometime in the future.

As for me, the next time I watch a movie without dialogue, I think I just might take some notes… 

“Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him.” James Allen

Last night we went out with friends for a birthday celebration dinner at a gourmet Mexican restaurant. It was my first visit there and the food was exceptionally good. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for our young waiter. We ordered drinks before dinner; when he returned he promptly dumped an entire strawberry margarita in my lap. (I’ll pause here for a moment while you giggle at the image…)

Fortunately (for him) I wasn’t really upset, despite being wet and sticky. In fact, we all went out of our way to help him not feel so badly about his mistake, until it dawned on us that he really didn’t feel very badly at all! He apologized in the same way you might say “Sorry, we’re out of Chilean seabass tonight.” We had to beg him for extra napkins to mop me up, ask him to comp the drink, and I then fermented in margarita in the same booth for the rest of our dinner.

All in all, it would have made for a funny story except that his disaster recovery was so atrocious. Luckily, I like to turn these things into life lessons. While it’s natural to focus on mistakes, the real issue is really how you recover from those mistakes. Handling missteps with integrity and grace is key to both better relationships and greater confidence in yourself.

For example, when you make a mistake with another person around, how do you handle it? Do you:

1) deny

2) laugh

3) blame

4) apologize

5) flee

6) ignore

I’m sure your response depends on the circumstances (and the mistake) but looking at how you handle mistakes says a lot about how you handle your life in general. How does your reaction affect the person impacted by your error? Do you make it better, or worse? And how does that impact you? For example, had the young waiter bent over backwards to fix the situation, he would have likely gotten an even larger tip (despite the accident); instead he got a small tip and a disgruntled customer.

And what about mistakes you make when no one is around? What do you say to yourself?

1) oopsie!

2) what a klutz!

3) how funny!

4) I’m always doing things like that…

5) why can’t I do anything right?

6) what can I learn from this?

How does your inner dialogue affect how you feel about your goof-up, or how you approach a similar situation next time?

Personally, I tend to handle mistakes affecting others better than ones that impact me alone, so as part of my own “disaster recovery training” I’m learning to be kinder to myself when they happen. And it makes me wonder — did that waiter beat himself up when he got home? Maybe so…

I just finished reading a great book by John Elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye, about his life with Asperger’s syndrome. I’m fascinated with autism spectrum disorders because, in the absence of “normal” communication and social interaction skills, people with these afflictions can tell us a lot about how we define normal communication and social interaction.

It intrigued me how John questions the social conventions most of us take for granted. Looking people in the eye when talking to them; expressing sympathy for the hardships of strangers; telling “white lies” instead of the truth to protect others’ feelings — these societal behaviors are often taken for granted, yet when I look more closely at these it’s easy to question whether these conventions are necessary, or merely arbitrary.

The other thing I found interesting is his exploration of the relationship between genius, focus, and social skills. There’s a stereotype that highly focused, highly intelligent people often don’t do very well socially. I’ve been around the science and high-tech field long enough to know that this stereotype holds true sometimes! I’ve met people who are absolutely brilliant at math or engineering, but sometimes forget to put their shoes on before they leave the house.

If you look a little further down the spectrum, you’ll meet people who struggle with focus and concentration; who are bright but not necessarily an expert in any one discipline (I like to call them “snorkelers,” as opposed to the specialist “divers”). Yet many snorkelers are warm, affable, highly social, and love people. Coaches tend to fall in this category, I’ve found.

Is there a correlation here? Certainly there are exceptions — highly sociable people who are experts in a narrow field, as well as misanthropic generalists — but by and large I’ve found that that being a “snorkeler” without a lot of focus opens you up to noticing social cues and subtle signals that the “divers” might miss. It might also be the difference between being focused inward and focused outward.

The good news in all this is that, as a snorkeler myself, I’ve decided to be OK with not being an expert in any given discipline, by reframing that I’m an expert in human behavior. That being a good listener, a rapport-builder, and an avid conversationalist is in itself a specialty.

I love words and language — in essence they are what define us as human. Just try to think about something — anything — without words popping up in your mind. It’s nearly impossible. Our words reflect who we are, and they also shape who we can become when we use them consciously. Often times we become enslaved by the words we use, by training or habit or laziness. Not particularly wanting to be enslaved (even by myself) I’ve been collecting strategies for using language more consciously, and thus be more the master of my thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

Which brings me to antonyms — an antonym is a word that is the opposite in meaning to another word. Fast - slow, hot - cold, happy - sad, that kind of thing. I sometimes use antonyms to help me choose how I want to be in a given situation.

Say I’m feeling nervous or afraid of something. If I’m alert enough to my state, I try to think of the antonym for what I’m feeling. Fearful becomes brave; nervous becomes calm. Then I think about what I would feel/say/do if I were experiencing that antonym, right now. And when I do that, the negative state I’m in tends to melt away and be replaced with something approaching that antonym.

Try it. Let me know how it works for you.

This past weekend we went on our first camping trip since moving to Colorado. We camped just east of Aspen and hiked up to Buckskin Pass (12,000 feet) past the Maroon Bells, some of the most beautiful mountain formations I’ve seen yet. The hike was about 8.5 miles round trip with 3,000 feet in elevation gain. I’m getting more acclimated to the elevation but I was still huffing and puffing by the time we reached the pass.

To occupy my mind and distract it from the pain in my lungs, I thought about how much hiking is like building a business (or building a life, for that matter). Much of the trail is already broken by others who came before, although you can certainly forge your own way at any time. Sometimes the trail is easy, cool, and shady; sometimes it’s rough, rocky, and steep. And sometimes it’s just plain boring.

You can breathe easily some of the way, enjoying the scenery around you. Then there comes a stretch where it’s all you can do to put one foot in front of the other. It’s essential at this point to stop, nourish yourself, catch your breath, and take in the view.

There were times as I was hiking where I thought, “What’s keeping me going here?” It could have been my ego wanting to keep pace with my husband; it could have been the promise of a good snack at the top (and an even better meal at the pub afterwards!). It could have been the knowledge that this strenuous workout was good for my body.

I think it was all those things, plus something else. The same thing that keeps me going when my business gets frustrating or monotonous or uncertain. That undefinable sense of “me-ness” that gets to call the shots in my life. The freedom to choose how I want to act and the realization that those actions define my self-image. You see, when you make a commitment, whether it’s to climb a mountain or launch a business, there’s a strong drive to act consistently with that commitment.

And from that desire for consistency comes the urge to keep going long after the rest of me wants to sit down and take off my boots.