We take life too personally.

We small business owners are an emotional bunch. At the start of each month we are full of hope. At each sales setback, we feel a little worse. As we approach the end of each month, maybe a little panic sets in. And on that final day, a little joy as we realise we haven’t slipped back as much as we thought we would two weeks ago.

Especially in these times.

Not only is this very hard work, but it is a recipe for flameout. And this is not a good time to be going down that road.

So what is the difference between you (or me) and Frank Betger? That is a trick question because you probably don’t know who he was!

Frank was a life insurance salesman just after the great depression, if I remember correctly. He wrote a wonderful book on selling. It starts with him trying to sell while he has no socks, nor shoes. It ends with his epiphany: It doesn’t matter how good or bad he is at selling — all that matters is how many people he tries to sell to. He stops taking the rejections personally. He just focuses on getting enough of them, because for every three rejections, he makes a sale.

AIG is an American company, one of the largest insurers in the world. If I may hazard a guess, I’m going to suggest that your business isn’t quite in their league? There is only one reason for that: they don’t take it personally. You probably do. And if you stop taking it personally, and start running it as a business like AIG, the government will also bail you out because you are so big!

But it is not just the sales that we take personally. It’s when an employee deserts us! That’s not personal either. That’s because that worker has a range of issues that we probably don’t know about, and if we did, would probably bother us even more. Or when somebody says that they won’t pay us. Instead of a system to collect the payment as easily as possible, we harrumph for a whole day as we take our eye off the sales ball. This makes the situation worse.

Or your business can’t pay a supplier right now. This is a little more difficult, but here is a thought: does the budgetary controller for the Department of Pubic Works in Mpumalanga lose any sleep when he tells 300 small business owners there is no money until the new budget comes through in November? (So why do we get so anxious when we tell the local SARS office the same thing?)

And then after a hard day of no sales (our only small joy is that we had no rejections) we get home to a grumpy woman (or man). We feel utterly useless because this morning she found her underwear a little too snug because of too many Dunkin Donuts!

Take a step back — right now. It’s not personal. Each of us is just trying to get through the day. And many of us are not doing it well. And we want to share that pain.

Pretend that you are merely an observer in your life. Look at all the things that vex you, and I bet most of them are caused by other people dumping their issues in your direction.

For instance, the reason you get anxious about not enough sales is simply that you’re not telling your story to enough people. Pace it up a little, and you will get more rejections and more sales. Trust me on this – those rejections are worth the pain.