That’s an awesome responsibility because it means we can no longer blame anyone else for the hassles that afflict us. In fact, as long as we continue to blame everyone else for the brown stuff we’re standing in - we simply cannot move on. As long as we’re not moving forward, we’re falling behind. That’s not good.

The problem is that it’s so easy to blame others for our problems because there’s no shortage of scapegoats – my bank; my parents; my wife; my kids; my illness; my schooling; my childhood; my staff; my ex-partners; my current partners; … [I apologise if I left out your current scapegoat.]

No individual is either a failure or a success. Each of us has our own measure of activities that didn’t work out – those activities we could define as failures. And each of us has our own share of successful activities. No matter how many of each you have – YOU aren’t the success or failure. I personally feel that the more failed activities you have participated in, the more experienced you must be, and the more ready you are for the next ‘success’.

One winter morning In 1993 I sat in a coffee shop in Stellenbosch. The Spur offers a bottomless coffee, and the caffeine stills hunger pangs – it is a great place to spend time and hide away from a terribly hostile world. Yet another creditor had just managed to find me and had tried to guilt me into paying money I didn’t have. But I had R2-50 for a bottomless coffee, and so I hid away.

I had spent the past 12 months trying to get a job in the life assurance industry, and it had been an uphill struggle. No assurance company would employ me because I was a diabetic, and no broker would employ me because I had judgments. Eventually, after 5 different roads, [and with the help of my brother] I had found a way in that combined the disadvantages of both a broker and an agent – but at least I could generate an income!

But this last call had been the final straw. I sat in a blue funk for an hour or so contemplating how crappy life had become, and how much of a failure I was. Eventually I opened my notebook to a new page and decided to write just 1 positive thing about where I was at that point in my life. It took about 10 minutes to come up with that first point – if I ever have another million I will know how NOT to spend it!

And then the floodgates opened and I filled that A4 page with ink. I had learnt how to manage money better; I had found out who my true friends were; I had learnt the value of my family; I had found a woman who was more interested in me than my [now non-existent] money; I had lost all fear about money; I knew how the system worked and could use that in the future; and much, much more.

When I ran out of space I began writing up the sides, and then went on to a new page – which I also filled. Yet nothing had changed in the real world – it was simply my view of the world that had changed. And that’s the same for each of us. There is no such thing as reality – our perceptions form a reality for each of us.

This means that when you tell yourself you can’t do something – irrespective of how good that reason seems – you’re lying to yourself. And that’s the worst kind of lie.

Many of the strategies in the CrashProof your Business seminar were developed as I met with more than 300 business owners in the Cape - trying to find out where I had gone wrong in my own business. That has allowed more than 15,000 SA entrepreneurs to stay out of their own banks clutches - and none of this would have happened if my first business venture hadn't 'failed'. Life is just so interesting, isn't it?

© Peter Carruthers, www.petesweekly.co.za

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