Hey, Doc, I’m Over Here . . . & I’m a Business Guy!

Squibs & Blurbs

By Jerry Zimmerman

“First, I came to realize that Business is the same as anything, the same as Meditation, Martial Arts, Auto Mechanics, Painting a Picture, or Painting a House. It is something one does, and we always—always—have a choice as to how we do whatever we do. Second, Business is people. Yes, it is also systems and cash flow and billing and taxes, and we often get caught up in all that due to their immediate importance to our physical welfare but, on the inside and the outside of any business, it is people who are its true life’s blood.”—By Jerry Zimmerman

“The chief characterisitic of the volitional act is the existence of a purpose to be achieved; the clear vision of an aim.”—Robert Assagioli, The Act of Will

TEANECK New Jersey—(Weekly Hubris)—4/28/2014—The doctor walked right by me.

I had just started seeing a sports injury specialist for my back a couple of weeks earlier and here I was in his waiting room again, the only patient, early for my appointment. The doctor came out of his office, looked at me, and strode through the room into the back office.

I was a bit stunned. Not a “Good morning” or even a curt “Hello”. He had treated me several times and definitely knew me as his patient, yet . . . silencio. Nada. OK, maybe he was a bit preoccupied, but it takes some concerted effort to look straight at a human being you know and simply and blithely walk by, especially a human being who is voluntarily paying you for your particular expertise.

Oops, here he comes back again, returning to his office. Now we’ll exchange greetings. But . . . no.

Now I’m flabbergasted. It may not sound like much, but it was pointedly and thoroughly dehumanizing. I don’t need much from other people, but while rampant rudeness not only annoys me on a personal level, on a business level it is senselessly self-destructive. Only my most pragmatic desire to continue a treatment that seemed to be helping kept me from leaping out of my chair, smoke trails jetting behind me as I scorched a path back home.

Why so sensitive, you may ask.

I’m a Born-Again Businessman and I’m totally baffled by the way some businesses treat their customers.

So let’s talk about running a small business.

I am currently entranced by business, and its inner workings because, after 40 years of working as a freelance artist, I (surprisingly) awoke one day to find that I was a small business owner!

All those years before, plying my trade as an illustrator, I always felt blessed that I didn’t have to be “in business.” As an artist, I often worked long and hard, often day and night for long stretches, yet I always felt lucky to be free of the (as perceived by me) dark forces that made up the Business Empire, whatever that was. Business! It just seemed so serious, mind-numbing, and soul-sucking to its core.

Several years ago, as my illustration career began precipitously to wind down, it dawned on me that I really had no Plan B in effect for keeping me financially afloat for the duration, however long that duration might be. At that point in my life, I had been running a small martial arts school “on the side” for about twelve years, managing it more as a club than as a going concern. One day, while speaking to my brother (a lawyer) while fretting over all the extra work the dojo required, I complained, “It’s almost like having a business!”

There was a slight pause before he said, “Jerry, it is a business!”

What? Really? Oh. Hmm. OK. Well . . . Great, hey: I have a business!

I doubt that anyone has entered the hallowed halls of commerce more dumbly than I.

The light bulb went off and—Boom!—I was literally shot into a new world. It was like going to Pluto. It was a tectonic-shift moment. And, most surprisingly, I was not suddenly a different person, as I had feared would happen, some Babbitt apparition gleefully rubbing his money-chafed hands together as he entered the blackened gates of the entrepreneurial world.

No, I seemed to be the same person as always, with the same deeply-held values, but now with new plans and new challenges. This was truly earth-shaking news for a stick-in-the-mud Taurus such as I.

As a Brand New Small Business Owner, I had to learn new skills, and fast. I bought tons of business books, listened to internet lectures, read everything I could on “How To Succeed” in anything, and I looked at every store I entered with newly critical eyes. I was, and I am still, enthralled by it all.

After this long aside, let’s now get back to my barely contained rage at being snubbed by my doctor. You can now see why I was so perturbed, being a newly-minted, rabidly enthusiastic Small Business Owner. I had come to this doctor due to the rave reviews of several of my martial arts students. Yes, he really seems to know what he is doing while working on my back, but his office has the feeling of a frat house late on Friday afternoon when all the guys (and girls) are getting ready to get on with the weekend, but only after finishing up their pesky homework—then, Toga Party!—not the sort of professional attitude you’re hoping for from a medical facility.

There was something missing in his business, something big. This doctor is great at what he does and he talks a lot about how he continually refines his craft and expands his knowledge: he is becoming a better and better doctor. But . . . he runs a lousy business!

This dichotomy of being great at what you do and horrible at running the business built around you is perfectly described in The E Myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber, a treasure of a book which should be every new business owner’s bible.

Gerber isolates the salient truth about starting your own business: “The technical work of a business and a business that does that technical work are two totally different things!”

Once I had digested this completely new and insanely obvious fact, everything changed for me. It was no longer OK or useful simply to be a great practitioner and teacher of aikido: I had to be, as well, a smart, hard-working manager of a business, my own! You can and must be good at both jobs and you can do this without diminishing one or the other.

Surprisingly, my eyes newly opened, I actually took to being a business owner.

The two most important discoveries for me in the course of my transformation have shaken my life up big-time.

First, I came to realize that Business is the same as anything, the same as Meditation, Martial Arts, Auto Mechanics, Painting a Picture, or Painting a House. It is something one does, and we always—always—have a choice as to how we do whatever we do.

Second, Business is people. Yes, it is also systems and cash flow and billing and taxes, and we often get caught up in all that due to their immediate importance to our physical welfare but, on the inside and the outside of any business, it is people who are its true life’s blood.

Put these two thoughts together and—Voila! —you must be mindful of how you run your business and that means you must be mindful of how you treat people. They are your customers. They are your partners and workers. They determine your success or failure.

Becoming a late-bloomer-businessman has opened up everything anew for me; new skills, new relationships within my community, a new sense of mission in my school, and a new sense of satisfaction in creating a successful venture out in the world.

Being good at what you do without being good in your business just isn’t good enough. It is self-limiting and very bad for the health of your company.

So, Doc, I’m here. Right here!

Take a chance. Look at me. Say hello . . . and who knows what may happen? You may find out that you like all those people hanging out in your waiting room, and they may find out that they like coming back for more.

Note: The image used to illustrate this column derives from: http://herviewfromhome.com/8-lessons-learned-from-a-childs-lemonade-stand/