Preventing Professional Scurvy with Vitamin C
For centuries, prolonged service at sea often resulted in a malady called scurvy. Sailors so afflicted bruised easily, had joint pain, gum disease, tooth loss -- you get the picture.
In the mid-18th century, researchers discovered that sailors given citrus fruit, like lemons and limes, did not get scurvy. We now know that the active ingredient in this "remedy" is vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid. Ascorbic actually means "no scurvy."
One of the maladies often found in business owners is a condition I call professional scurvy. This kind doesn't cause your teeth to fall out, but symptoms do include high levels of negative energy, low levels of performance, and an easily bruised ego, all of which manifest in a dangerous, and sometimes professionally fatal, failure-to-success ratio.
The good news is, like the seagoing kind, professional scurvy can be cured with vitamin C -- actually four kinds of professional vitamin C.
Professional Vitamin C
1. Vitamin Courage Challenges ignored will turn into ugly problems that can bruise a business. But facing a challenge with courage will reduce the negative impact and give it a chance to morph into an opportunity.
Courage is being brave after you've had time to think about it. Here-s more good news: most challenges allow enough time for you to think about them and apply a healthy dose of Vitamin Courage.
2. Vitamin Confidence
Didn't Thomas Edison say failure is successfully identifying what doesn't work? Pure success tends to build ego, which in high concentration can be professionally dangerous. But success alloyed with failure actually builds confidence, which is essential for long-term performance.
Vitamin Confidence in business is nothing more than faith in your ability to sail around present and future challenges, as well as seize the opportunities that come your way.
3. Vitamin Character
Contracts are the transactional laws of the marketplace. But in business, like the captain and crew of a sailing ship, it's the character of the parties that ultimately make a relationship work, not just the words or signatures on paper.
Those who demonstrate high levels of Vitamin Character -- like doing the right thing even if the contract doesn't require it -- don't have any difficulty finding customers or crew.
4. Vitamin Credential
This one is critical because courage without skill is the definition of foolhardy; confidence without resources is what Texans call "all hat and no cattle;" and character without knowledge is a well-intentioned commitment that probably can't be kept.
All the best intentions won't make your business successful if you don't acquire adequate levels of Vitamin Credential -- education, skill, experience, and resources -- that can back up your business plan and commitment to deliver.
Write this on a rock... Preventing scurvy is no longer a mystery. All it takes is liberal applications of the right kinds of Vitamin C.
Jim Blasingame
Small Business Expert and host of The Small Business Advocate Show
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