Planet Laundry Dec 2020

THE BUS INESS MIND Stephen Bean

The Psychology of Risk

Mastering the Uncertainties of Laundromat Ownership

“Ninety-five percent of thought, emotion and learning occur in the unconscious mind without our awareness.” – Dr. Gerald Zautman, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University It’s a well-accepted fact that all business ownership involves the acceptance and experience of risk. When you own a small business, such as a vended laundry, there are no guarantees. Of course, laundry owners know this. But the big question is how they deal with the risks involved on an emotional and intellectual level, while still doing their best work. There’s an old saying about going into business: “If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.”Some individuals can accept the risk, and others simply can’t. Some people choose to take a risk and start their own business, while others choose to work for an employer. By definition, owning a laundry business means that you cannot be fired in the traditional sense, while being an employee of a company or some other organization certainly does not preclude that possibility. In essence, both paths carry a degree of risk that merely differ in kind. And, in my view, the difference between the path-takers is their inherent personality structure. Clearly, I’m here to discuss entrepreneurs – those of you who choose to own and grow a laundry business – and why, from a psychological standpoint, they essentially are content but not necessarily always comfortable. If I were to ask a group of laundry owners why they have taken the road to small-business ownership, I would get a number of intellectual answers. However, the real answers go deeper than that, as I have learned frommy experience in the world of clinical psychology. Your mind is made up of layers of consciousness. No doubt, there is the conscious level. An example of which is what you think about daily and remember all the time. But then there also

is an unconscious level, which forms early in life in response to the influences of parents, teachers and caregivers functioning as the unconscious template around which your entire life is organized – and this holds the real basis for your personality. These levels work together, but you are aware of only the conscious level. In short, your unconscious level keeps your personality stable and is the foundation of your personality. One of the enduring principles of individual psychology is that “nobody can turn around fast enough to really see themselves,”meaning that the dynamics of your unconscious mind remain hidden from you, yet are extremely influential to your personality and your world view throughout your lifetime. In reality, the difference between risk-takers – defined for this article as small-business owners – and others is what is contained in their unconscious minds. This subject should be highly interesting to all laundry owners, because I know that from time to time, when business get“challenging,”many of you have been heard muttering such phrases as: • “What on Earth am I doing owning a laundromat?” • “Who needs this aggravation?” • “I should have gone to work for GM or been a career Navy man like my dad.” • “Dealing with my employees and these outrageous customer demands are going to put me in an early grave.” • “I should have had my head examined when I decided to go to work for myself.” Do any of those sound familiar? Let me give you a quick“head examination”– with the hope that it not only will be intellectually interesting to you, but also will help you to adjust to the inevitable tough times of business ownership, but providing some reasons as to why

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