Relaxing my way through a bad economy

Today seems as fitting a day to write about how to relax through a bad economy as any. Today, I recall that during the week of Sept. 11, 2001, I experienced three life-changing events:

  1. The horrific events of the 9-11 attacks on America as viewed from a distance, like most of us did
  2. The loss of my job – my last week working in the corporate world
  3. My second miscarriage

I started my new consulting firm three weeks later, so I didn’t have a lot of time to mull it all over. Looking back, I don’t think that even these three things happening all in one week taught me the benefit of relaxing and just living in the moment.

Eight years later, however, I’ve found that I am uncommonly relaxed. Had this horrendous economic situation happened early in my firm’s existence, I may have closed up shop and headed back into corporate America. But during this year, our first truly bad year in terms of revenue, I find myself pretty serene.

Yes, we were very slow in the second quarter. Things picked up in the third quarter, but as any boutique or independent will tell you, the money doesn’t come in until months later. All the financial systems and processes we put in place at the start made this tight year feel less scary. For example:

  • When we had a good year, we banked a lot as future reserves
  • We created a safety net just in case (home equity line of credit)
  • We avoided taking any business loans so we wouldn’t have any lingering debt
  • We’ve been practical about what we could spend on the business and when we could spend it
  • We use fairly formal business practices, doing a formal payroll every month

Most importantly, we’ve stayed true to our value proposition of delivering great value in a narrow band of services. It’s this that gave me great faith that our smart clients would return when the need and budget was there. And they have.

I know it’s easier said than done. I know that planning ahead and being prudent isn’t always possible. I know how hard it is to deal with the ambiguity, constant change and uncertain finances of being self-employed. But, finally, after all these years, I have enough faith in the little business we’ve built to say: I think we can make this work for as long as we want to.

I can hear myself now: “Heck, we made it through 2009, didn’t we?”