March 2011 Update 2

Did I say "one step forward - two steps back?"

Ye Gods. My departing Finance guy left me a little six figure present! A debt to the Taxman. And if I can't work something out fast, they'll shut the company down. Everything gone in one fell swoop.


The really tragic bit is that it was avoidable. They sent a letter to us and it went to the wrong address and someone there sent it back to them saying that there was no company of that name at that address, which was accurate but which they misinterpreted as they didn't know that it had been misdelivered! So they acted.

Oh Boy! Now what do I do?

March 2011 Update

So where are we? Well I managed to get some cash to pump into the company by securing a loan against the last asset I own - a tiny site in the back end of nowhere (left to me by my father). Unfortunately revenues are down year on year and the disparity has swallowed the capital injection I just made in under 2 months.

The other directors are now gone and I'm saving their salaries and other costs which are substantial enough for this tiny business to be very close to breaking even. I've restructured and not replaced certain people who thankfully left of their own accord. I may just be able to save the jobs of the remaining staff. The problem is that I'm doing 75% of the ex-Directors' jobs right now and possibly not very well, or not well enough (time will tell).

A quick and nasty summary of life right now is:

• one step forward,
• kick in the face,
• pick your self up,
• dust yourself off,
• realise that you are now two steps back and
• start trying to move forward again.

Woodrow Wilson was right. It's about perseverence. Not giving up. Not giving in. Damn fool stubbornness. And maybe when your back is to the wall it changes from being your worst to your finest hour in some indecipherable way I've yet to figure out. I certainly know that if I go down then I'll go down fighting. But we're a long way from that.

Maybe I'm deluding myself but I think that we may just be closer to success than I think. I've made some good decisions and the team that's left are good and loyal and hard-working and they have pride in our little business.

I'm learning too, about the corrosive quality of worry. If I allow anxiety and concern for negative outcomes of events and processes then I'm shooting myself in the foot. Worrying never fixed anything.

By just focusing on where I am, what I am doing and dealing with what is in front of me I can make myself impermeable to worry and crucially, to its negative impact on my efficacy.