Hello, is anyone listening?

What I would have done differently…I would have realized that when you become a business owner, you have to commit yourself to thinking, acting and doing like a business person or you will be eaten alive.  You can not be a person who is running a business.  You have to be a business who can not think like a person.  This is sad really, and what I believe is the demise of our culture but not realizing this will bury you in business today!

WHY ISN’T ANYONE LISTENING!

I used to be a person that people listened to.  I normally did not add things to conversations that I knew very little or nothing about.  But if it was something that I knew about, I had no problem expressing my point of view and was very good at it.  Real estate was my forte in the late eighties and nineties.  Then I became a restaurant owner and gained knowledge in that area as well.  I was considered an expert in marketing since I not only studied it extensively in both Real estate and the restaurant business but was in charge of it as well. 

Even though it is rather egoic to want people to listen to you, I still liked it and always wanted to become a public speaker.  Simply put…when I spoke, people listened!  Then came our financial ruin and I have not been heard again!  No matter what my opinion is about anything, I am basically ignored by most people who knew me before our financial ruin.  Am I to assume that most people believe that if you experience financial ruin no one can trust what you have to say anymore?

I can see it!  If I engage in a conversation, instead of people staying around and listening and participation, they look away when I am speaking.  They shrug their shoulders and give an attitude of “whatever”.  At first, it really hurt.  I was treated like I had a disease that someone could catch if they were in a conversation with me.  It was hard to understand why I had to endure this treatment by others.  Wasn’t the financial situation painful enough?

Becoming a person who was no longer listened to is actually one of the hardest changes I have endured during this process.  I felt like it changed who I was.  This situation of financial ruin was something that happened in my life, however, it should not label the “who I am”.  The society that we live in is extremely hard on people who experience financial ruin.  I believe it is because most people view it as “self inflicted”.  More on this in future posts.