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Personal Growth —

Is 2012 the Year to Start Your Business?

It’s now year five of the economic downturn and you are still thinking of starting a business. Is now the right time? What you may need more than anything to succeed is courage and commitment.
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What’s the Latest Development?

It’s year five of the economic downturn and you are still thinking of starting a new business. Is now the right time? In terms of market conditions, there are some advantages hidden in the present moment. Among them, says Carol Tice, are cheap real estate, affordable leases and cooperative landlords, weaker competition, vendors willing to offer generous terms and low-cost advertising options. “Most importantly, there’s the thrill of chucking a job you hate—or maybe a floundering small business that’s not working—to try out a new idea.”

What’s the Big Idea?

The biggest hurdle to starting your own business is rarely economic. Typically, it’s gathering the courage and commitment needed to launch a start up. Tice recalls a freelance writer who felt trapped working in the family jewelry store. To realize her dream of writing for a living, she needed advice both practical and inspirational: getting realistic about her writing portfolio and working up the courage to tell her family she wanted to strike out on her own. Committing yourself to the unknown can be scary—but you only live once.

Photo credit: shutterstock.com

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Guest Thinkers
Happy New Year
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth). Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay. Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.
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