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Thread: Too emotionally attached?

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Too emotionally attached?

    One thought that keeps coming up over recent years is that "businesses are owned by real people - business owners are people too."

    The thought is normally triggered when there's a dispute between a consumer or employee(s) and a business, and reports invariably portray the consumer or employee as "real people" suffering consequences, whereas I'm yet to see the same human interest value attributed to the business side of the equation.

    And yet behind every SMME are real people, quite often suffering just as much anguish - perhaps even more.

    This one's a little different though.

    Wendy Machinik has spoken up about the events that lead to her fall. The story is fairly neutral, I guess - but I suspect many a business owner will recognise an all too human trait on display; many business owners really are emotionally attached to their businesses.

    Quite often too emotionally attached.

    And it does affect our judgement.
    Last edited by Dave A; 03-Dec-12 at 07:37 AM.

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    Darkangelyaya (02-Dec-12), tec0 (02-Dec-12)

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Judgement?

    No... Ego effects judgment. I have seen enough businesses grow and enough businesses fall to know that this is the only truth of business.
    peace is a state of mind
    Disclaimer: everything written by me can be considered as fictional.

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    Darkangelyaya (02-Dec-12)

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    Silver Member Darkangelyaya's Avatar
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    A friend, someone who used to be one of the richest men in SA said: 'I gave birth to my company, nurtured it, grew it, and killed it'.
    Ego is what made me go into a males only industry, and prove my ex-husband wrong when he said I would never survive on my own. In direct competition with him, I kicked his alcohol preserved ass to the curb.
    Emotional attachment is often the motivation required to get your backside out of bed. So hell-yes to that!
    ~Anything or anyone who does not bring you alive, is too small for you~ Carina
    ~The moment you think you know it all, is the moment you know nothing~ Carina
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    A business should be treated the same way you treat your own child. You love it, nurture it but at the end of the day your purpose is to prepare it to stand on its own. As a parent / entreprenuer you should one day come to a point where you can say, I did my vey best and now the time has come to let it lead its own life. Your purpose is not to lead its life or interchange each other's lives, it is to enable the individual life of the child / business. If you were a good parent / entreprenuer, your business / child should be able to stand on its own and you should be able to set it free to do so. You are not your child nor your business, you are not the creator of the being, you are the director until you hand over the reigns.

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    tec0 (02-Dec-12)

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    I read the article. the only thing this lady regrets is being caught. If she is penniless as she claims to be, then how is she going to pay the R25,000 per month as reported. She has not come clean.

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    Darkangelyaya (03-Dec-12)

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    Reading it again I still don't get it...? See she wanted to keep the business going because of the employees? Then she was blackmailed?

    I remember not too long ago I posted something about planning for when your business fail. Because it will eventually fail. She didn’t plan for it thus no recourse…

    Ego gets in the way of good judgement and sound planning. It is almost always the case.

    In my opinion always plan for the worst especially when your business is at its strongest.
    peace is a state of mind
    Disclaimer: everything written by me can be considered as fictional.

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    Remember John DeLorean. He tried everything to keep his business going. He got caught in a FBI drug sting when he tried to make a deal to get some money to keep the business going.

    Many of his employees said that he was not a drug dealer, that he just wanted to save the company and their jobs...

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    tec0 (03-Dec-12)

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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    If I ever get to the top again I will do the following.

    1> Invest in my employees training
    so that they can get other work
    when the time comes.

    2> Keep your books up to date and the tax man happy.

    3> Establish backup investments.
    4> Keep debt to a minimum.
    5> Establish only cash accounts with suppliers.
    6> Keep commodities such as Gold or Diamonds.
    7> Third party investments (example: investing in other small businesses)
    8> Keep a good lawyer on retainer and have regular strategy sessions with her/him.

    9> Avoid all or nothing situations they never pay off.

    10> Don't trust anyone.

    11> Keep none digital records of everything you own and have and there value
    peace is a state of mind
    Disclaimer: everything written by me can be considered as fictional.

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    Diamond Member Citizen X's Avatar
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    Man in his many roles: employer, employee, customer, supplier. I think that in management ,when one has an emotional oversight, it’s taken as the cost of learning. This learning experience then leads to greater emotional maturity as time progresses. We all lose it from time to time. I’ve learned many years ago that the ‘you work or else,’ philosophy just doesn’t work in practice. I’ve learned that it takes energy to scream and shout. It takes skill to listen, understand and respond intelligently. Customers, especially in the retail industry, are not the angels they made out to be. Regardless I could pull off the ‘Yes Madam, Yes Sir,’ routine off rather quite effectively, I learned that many crave a desire for importance and use their shopping experience to rant and rave at staff for no tangible reason. There’s a reason why I like the ‘scam alert forum,’ so much, one can just respond to those characters that find themselves there anyhow! A once in a lifetime opportunity to rant! It seems human beings need many ways to let off steam. I have noticed that with service delivery protests, some protestors are there not to defend or promote the socio economic right common to the group but rather to let off steam!
    In the past, we need the collosium to appease us. This was a family outing to look forward to1 We now have reality t.v and tabloid magazines and newspapers all designed to appease us.
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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Ego, passion, call it what you will - it's an emotional response rather than a purely rational one.

    And I see it as a double edged sword.

    It's a powerful driver in pushing a business towards success and often is the difference between success and failure. But it's also something that can get the owner to over-commit and end up losing everything on a lost cause, or as in the Machinik case in what I'm sure she saw as a temporary setback, grab "bridging finance" that wasn't hers to use.

    It's more than about the money - It's just not easy to quit on your "baby".

  17. Thanks given for this post:

    Darkangelyaya (04-Dec-12)

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