Resilience in small business

Resilience in small business

I spent my youth living and working in a ‘small business’ family and have since returned to this business model in my current work, following time in large corporations.

At the age of 21, as I watched my father (lifetime small-businessman) fail to respond to emergency treatment following a heart attack at age 49, I have reflected many times on what led to this waste of the life of a good man.

The intense environment experienced by small-business leaders, with constant emphasis on long hours, maintaining cashflow, managing staff issues/turnover, mastering the online environment, uncertainty of future growth/sales demand, carrying bad debtors, dealing with difficult customers and compromised time outside work is enough to question why one would choose this lot? Oh, that’s right.

To be my own boss. To innovate. To make a difference. To earn a living for my family.

Whatever the motivation, life is far too short to not enjoy the upsides of small business such as personal satisfaction, community contribution, and flexibility while mastering my health and happiness.

While this challenging environment is what it is, we have huge influence over how we choose to engage with it. This choice is called resilience.

Ask 100 people to define resilience and the common answer is stoicism or ‘bounce back’. In part, I buy that. With one in five people likely to experience depression and small businesses employing just under half of all private-sector employees in Australia, providing support for mental ill-health must be a priority.

Resilience is about living with courage, turning adversity into opportunity, creative use of our talents and – most importantly – strong connection with others. 

However, my experience is that life is more than survival – and so is resilience. Beyond ‘bounce back’, resilience is about living with courage, turning adversity into opportunity, creative use of our talents and – most importantly – strong connection with others.

When I master these dimensions, I find myself thriving and engaged in life and my ‘spirit in action’.

Resilient people invest in five key disciplines:

1. Master stress

This is not about coping with negative stress; it is about shifting to positive stress and peak performance.

In part this is possible by recognising that all forms of stress are created by myself when I let my thinking shift to a future forecast about an event that has not yet occurred, e.g. stress from running late for the meeting or pending tax bill.

Choosing to let that future threat fester can lead to sleepless nights and the start of the downward spiral.

A resilient person will either reframe the thought to improve its perspective, or return to the present and seek help to resolve the threat.

Fundamental to mastery of stress is also the basic practice of deep, diaphragmatic breathing.

Resilience tip: Real-time relaxation – when in doubt, breathe out.

2. Energise body

Often neglected in exchange for urgent business needs, and yet the investments I make in exercise, sleep and nutrition underpin my ability to be positive, optimistic and at my best.

Resilience tip: Exercise – 20 minutes most days of the week.

Resilience tip: Sleep – stop caffeine intake by 3pm and wake up at the same time seven days a week

3. Engage emotions

Under pressure, we can find ourselves defaulting to negative emotions.

Ultimately this destroys relationships, leadership, health and happiness. With practice, human beings can choose positive emotions that foster better outcomes with our clients, staff and families.

Resilience tip: Respond to situations, don’t react.

4. Train your mind

A resilient small-business leader is able to view their world with a mindset of realistic optimism. Unfortunately, during tough times, this style can shift to pessimism (most depression is a thinking disease!) or delusional optimism (unwarranted risk-taking).

It is very difficult to observe one’s thinking style with a busy, frantic mind. So the starting point is practising mindfulness.

Resilience tip: Practise mindfulness for one minute, three times a day through slow, focused breathing.

5. Spirit in action

Resilience is ultimately anchored by remembering why you do what you do – your purpose. This brings perspective to issues that could otherwise keep you awake.

Resilience tip: Engage in a nonwork passion once a week.

As stated in Harvard Business Review –

‘… more than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails.’

Stuart Taylor, Managing Director, The Resilience Institute in Australia