I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
“No one is going to fix financial inequity for women. We have to recognize our own self-worth, ask for higher salaries, invest more aggressively, and build our own wealth.” ~ Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth Founder
For my interview with Amanda, please visit: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2901-NY-Business-Strategies-Examiner~y2009m7d15-Interview-with-Amanda-Steinberg-Founder-of-DailyWorth
Fear preoccupies us, consumes us. We can’t get it out of our minds. It follows us around, a shadow that’s always just a step or two behind. It impacts our actions. It’s distracts us from our responsibilities and keeps us from our dreams.
It’s amazing what happens when we let fear dissipate. A weight lifts from our shoulders. The world is a little brighter. There’s a little more hope in our hearts. Best of all, we are able to be more ourselves without fear. We can see all the possibilities in front of us.
So how do we let go of fear? Like most other ailments, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So here are some ideas on how to banish fear and also how to keep it at bay, along with an example of a fear I’ve worked through.
1.) Identify the fear. Give it a name.
I always thought I had a real fear of not having money. But then as my earning power increased, I found I was still afraid. It took me a while to realize that my real fear was not being able to provide for myself.
2.) With the true fear identified, consider what would happen if we had to handle the fear head-on tomorrow.
Once I realized that I was afraid of not being able to provide for myself, I thought about what I would do if I suddenly found myself living my fear. I made a list of friends and family who might be able to help me. As I worked through my list, I realized what an amazing support group I have.
And then I considered all the times in my life when I had been very close to living my fear. I thought about how I’d previously gotten myself out of tight budget situations. In college, I was always on the verge of being completely broke. I would get an extra job or pick up a few hours at my current jobs. I even participated in psychology experiments run by grad students at my university to get an extra $25 or $50. I was very good at cutting my expenses down to nearly $0 if need be. I got used to super-cheap food, and I went without every possible frill imaginable.
3.) Talk to others about the fear. Articulated fears are much less scary than those that swim around in our minds.
This one was hard for me. For the majority of my life I was really embarrassed about my financial situation. And then I met a bunch of people in college who also had a hard time making ends meet. They were more at ease about it than I was and they always had some odd job leads that were very helpful.
4.) Set-up a plan to keep the fear at bay, and remember that a fear can be a wonderful motivator to promote good habits.
Because I was worried about not being able to provide for myself, I made an action plan of how to get myself into a situation that made my fear irrelevant. I put myself onto an aggressive savings plan so that I’d have a cushion to fall back on if something went wrong. I also became an expert negotiator for my salary and for variable priced purchases like cars and rental apartments.
My fear about not being able to provide for myself also made me very empathic toward those who truly can’t provide for themselves. I knew that fear and sadness and embarrassment they felt. I’d felt it, too. And spending time with those people made me realize how extra ordinarily lucky I am, even at times when I didn’t have much at all.
I also realized that I wanted to have more control over my earnings. The roots of my entrepreneurial spirit were started in my desire to provide for myself, to take my future into my own hands. And while I wish that I hadn’t allowed fear to plague me for so long, in the end I learned to make the most of it while it was here. I lived through my fear many times over and the sky didn’t fall down. Maybe what I was afraid of was fear itself.
I’m working on some new product ideas especially for the Chinese consumer market and for some perspective I turned to my close friend, Allan, who was born and raised in Beijing. With his drive and intricate understanding of the markets, I am eventually handing all of my money over to him to manage, and if I ever need a board member, my first call is to him. Allan never agrees with me right off the bat about anything – he doesn’t give me an inch of wiggle room. Allan, in his characteristically curious way, questions me incessantly on detail after detail. And I am deeply grateful for that.
Today, our conversation flipped from Chinese vs. American culture (a favorite topic of ours) to the state of our jobs to future plans and then to social enterprise. While everyone on the planet is gushing about the promise and bright future of social enterprise, Allan is skeptical. Today he forced me to take him through the concept of social entrepreneurship, step by step. The financials, the motivation, the benefits, the short-comings, the operational challenges.
Allan took all this information in and to wrap up, he got to 1 more very simple question and 1 very simple conclusion. Allan’s last question: “Christa, are you okay with having a $7 lunch for the rest of your life as opposed to a $70 lunch like those guys on Wall Street?” My answer: “Yes, I’d prefer it that way.” Allan’s reply: “Good. Then you are a perfect candidate to be a social entrepreneur.” Allan’s conclusion: “Seems to me that there must be some off-balance sheet assets that must be accounted for.” How true that is!
For the rest of the afternoon, I thought about the role of off-balance sheet assets that we must consider in every aspect of our lives; how we spend our time and with whom, our happiness, the amount we laugh everyday, and our sense of purpose are all assets that are tough to value in dollars. And yet, they are critically important – I would argue far more important than our salaries (provided our salaries cover our basic needs). These “other” assets, the ones we can’t hold in the palm of our hand, are the stuff that make our lives worthwhile.
Allan and I trekked up to the castle that overlooks the Great Lawn in Central Park. I was grinning from ear to ear and Allan asked me, “What does that view mean to you?” I looked out at the people relaxing, smiling, and enjoying the simultaneously simple and complex act of being alive. A small oasis of hope in a city that is seeing its fair share of challenges. This view is off-balance sheet assets personified. And from that view, their value is very easy to see.
The photo is from Pbase.com/mikebny
In yesterday’s post, Gary Novosel of The Food Medic gave the advice that all entrepreneurs should write down all the fears about starting their own business, and then put them aside. I really took his advice to heart as I have a lot of fears about starting my own business. As I reviewed my list I realized that it’s longer than I thought it was and that there are probably a lot of people who share the same fears.
To overcome fears we have to look our fears in the face and not blink. I really want to start my own venture, and the best way to answer these fears is to write them out and then write a remedy for each of them. Since these thoughts may be helpful to readers who are also interested in starting their own businesses, I wanted to write them as a series on this blog with the hope that I can replace fear with hope:
Fear #1: “I won’t make enough money.”
Start small and grow slowly. Whenever we begin something, we naturally wish for success in a big way. What seems more sustainable to me, and will likely generate more happiness, is a steady flame rather than a flash in the pan.
If we can keep a steady job while starting our own business on the side with our free time, that releases some financial fears. The trick is to be present at a job when we’re there, and present working on our business in our own time. I hear from a lot of entrepreneurs that they are frustrated that they can’t spend all their time on their business because they have to keep a day job. Finding a few nuggets of our job that inform our own business idea eases that frustration.
My friend, Dave, is interested in a portfolio approach to his career – a lot of different ventures that each earn a small amount of money and keep him interested and engaged. Entrepreneurs place a lot of pressure on themselves to earn all their income from a single business idea. That might work, or we might find that we’re happy earning a portion of our total income from a business venture, at least in the beginning.
Concern about earning enough money from my business laid to rest. Fear #2 for tomorrow: “No one will want the product or service my business produces.”
I’ve given up on opening my 401K statements. The news is just too depressing. Given our current economic state, I’ve been searching of where to put my investment money. Where will it do the most good, for me and for the companies I choose to invest in. When I look at the Dow 30, I don’t have a lot of faith in many of those institutions to reinvent themselves. Some of them have remarkable potential. Most of them have to accept that they have a very tough realization to come to terms with – in the words of Darwin, “Change or die.”
You’re panicked about 2009, and rightly so. The predictions for the economy are dire. We can’t hole up in our homes, under the bed, and wait for sunnier skies. We still need to get up and out into the world, no matter how gruesome it may be. So how exactly are we going to find the strength to do that? How are we going to squelch the anxiety all around us and within us?
I don’t know anyone who says, “Thank God the economy is tanking!” That doesn’t mean there aren’t some positive, and unexpected, side effects of our latest economic decline. With dollars scarce, investors leery, and earnings expectations scrutinized like never before, companies previously considered bitter enemies are sharing marketing dollars, cross-promoting one another, and sharing best practices.
Who doesn’t need a little extra money these days? Pretty soon you may need to look no further than your trash can. This week, Business Week ran an article on the recycling and waste – an area of our economy that is booming despite the loses being felt in many other industries. Green collar jobs and green collar crime are on the rise, mostly in the area of how to use trash. VC and PE firms are tripping over themselves to invest in new trash technologies, throwing a million ideas at the wall and hoping that a couple of them stick.
Christa Avampato 
