What To Do (Or Not To Do)?

The issues going on in the world were so big and complex. Investment banks were collapsing. Companies were going bankrupt. There was even a report that General Electric wasn’t going to have enough cash to pay its bills. The normal solutions to problems weren’t working. If even the biggest companies didn’t have solutions, how would a company like IncentOne survive? There were so many nights that I sat up thinking about the business at 2 a.m. with the realization that the “math just wouldn’t work.” That we could do all the things people do in these situation—cut costs, cut back growth plans, look for financing—and it still might not matter.

“The normal solutions were not going to work and I had to start to think differently.” 

A New Perspective

I was in the gym one morning and it hit me. The normal solutions were not going to work and I had to start to think differently. If I was going to save IncentOne, I was going to have to change my thinking entirely, universally. I was going to have to change my perspective on every part of the business. We were going to have to come up with new ways of thinking about everything—customers, people, expenses, investors, technology, revenue, financing, negotiation. After all, it was no longer about thinking outside of the box—the box was long gone and there seemed no point in replacing it.

For some reason, I felt like I had discovered plutonium. I remember walk- ing across the street after I left the gym that morning and almost getting hit by a bus. My mind was in a different place. And it reenergized me. It gave me a new opportunity. I mean this is what entrepreneurs do right? We think differently. I spent nearly three years doing just that. I worked like a dog, made many mistakes but also found success, insight and humility. I also made many shifts in perspective that helped me save IncentOne. The events of these years are no longer simply the details of my story. They are the foundation for The Lonely Entrepreneur —and will hopefully become part of the story for many more entrepreneurs to come. How do you change your perspective when you are under the pressure, chaos and burden of being the entrepreneur from the ones that stifle progress to those that empower you to thrive?

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