Midlife offers us an often unsolicited opportunity for personal transformation.  As every one of us can testify, either from our own experience, or vicariously, many adults in America are handed this chance-in-a-lifetime through circumstances that are less than optimal. 

I’d like to suggest looking at this life passage with a glass half full – as a mid-life prospect – instead of half empty –  as a time of crisis.  The quickest way to make the turnaround from empty to full is with a change of perspective.  Nothing is more invigorating to personal transformation than inspiration.
My partner Michael and I have recently begun collaborating with a couple of dynamic consultant/personal coaches, Mary Boardman and Ravi Walsh, whose titles I’ve morphed to personal enrichment therapists.  Together we are working to blaze some new trails in the business landscape, to introduce tools to help individuals fully integrate the spiritual element into their work lives.

I was perusing Norm Brodsky’s blog on the Inc. Magazine online edition, and read an article close to my partner Michael’s and my hearts. It was actually written in August of 2007, about when we began telling many business owners who were  emotionally ready to leave their businesses, but still waiting for the “best time”, to “Sell!”  Funny, that’s the title of Norm’ s article. 

What he said then is even more salient now.  It was back in 2007 that Michael was telling anyone who would listen that multiples were the highest they’d be for years to come, maybe ever.  He also predicted the impending implosion of the real estate bubble and the tumbling of the financial house of cards built by hedge fund managers bent on reaping obscene rewards from financial shell games played within the loopholes of financial regulation.

I wanted to write about sustainability for my first entry of the New Year, and found inspiration from a Christmas card a dear friend sent me.  The front of the card reads “Wherever you stand be the soul of that place,” by Rumi. How 2010, a Christmas card quoting a mystic Sufi poet! ( actually, it was a blank card, with a hand-written Merry Christmas message on the inside.)

Nevertheless,  the message is two-fold and very Aquarian: of the conscience of sustainability coupled with a celebration of spiritual unity. I’d like to make a connection of these ideas to business.

Business NotesYesterday I was called upon to make a call for a client who is in the process of winding down his business, selling its assets, and negotiating a work-out with creditors, in lieu of a formal bankruptcy. 

He was receiving calls from what he believed to be an attorney representing a creditor to whom he was in arrears.  The calls were so inflammatory and disturbing that he's been unable to sleep.  In fact, the messages left on his voicemail stated that they would put a lien against his house unless he paid the outstanding invoice.

Last week I attended a Matchmaker workshop at RIT, to provide opportunities for upstate NY companies to do business with government agencies and their prime contractors.  I was there representing a client for whom I provide growth planning and implementation, and a part of our strategic plan is to develop this market segment. 

There are Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs) throughout the country – something like 93 of them – and there are nine in New York State.  Three serve upstate NY in Cattaraugus county, the Watertown area, and Rochester.  The rest are downstate.  These entities are joint-funded by the Department of Defense and various and sundry economic development agencies, depending on their location.  And they do a great job of educating, and providing opportunities for small businesses to enhance their revenues with business generated by the government.

Business NotesI just arrived home from an evening at the King Ferry Hotel, visiting with my friend Nancy Shaw.  We chatted the evening away, connecting on so many levels.  And the most striking part of our conversation all night came just before my partner Michael alerted me to “be prepared to exit the vehicle,” which is what he usually says when he’s dropping me of somewhere, usually about 10 minutes late.  (He tries so hard to be a good timekeeper, and I make his job really miserable at times.  I’ve accepted that fact that I’ve been born with a defective clock and compass implanted in my brain…)

At any rate, just prior to being given a ten minute warning, Nancy and I were discussing the joys of living simply.  ( Who would ever want to cut this discussion short?!)   She recalled that a while ago I told her that Michael and I decided to give his grandkids experiences for gifts – we realized that we couldn’t give them any things that would make lasting impressions, but we could give them memorable experiences.

Today I attended the fourth annual AccelerateCNY event in Syracuse.  It was a half-day of workshops in the following categories: Business Growth, Manufacturing Excellence, Sustainability and the Bottom Line, and Technology Innovation.  If I had to guess, I’d say it was attended by about 200 people, max.  Given the pertinence of the topics, and the quality of the speakers, it’s hard to believe more business owners and managers weren’t there.

Most small businesses that are marginal suffer from their owners spending more  time working in the business than the time they spend working on their business.  As long as I’m using clichés, I’ll also mention that not enough business owners spend adequate time sharpening the saw.  I actually heard two instances in the past two days, of business owners who have significant budgets to provide ongoing training for their workforce, which enables them to maintain a competitive edge.  But I wonder how many business owners budget time and money to improve their own business acumen.

If you’re a business owner from age 45 to 65, raise your hand if you’ve begun actively planning for the time you will exit your business. 

Just as I expected, a paltry showing.

Given the small number of business owners who run their businesses according to a written plan, it isn’t surprising that the vast majority of owners of privately-held businesses have no formal exit plan in place.  That’s not to say any business owner who’s asked wouldn’t have a strategy of sorts , albeit in his or her head. (That’s the answer we usually receive when we ask business owners if they have a written business plan. Much more often than not, they say, “No, but it’s in my head.”)

Whenever I begin a workshop on exit, or succession planning for business owners, I begin with the obvious and much avoided question, “ If a catastrophic event removed you from your business today, what would happen to it?  To your family?  To your employees?  To your customers and vendors?

This question is particularly difficult for owners of privately-help businesses with fairly simple infrastructures.  Most entrepreneurs are optimistic, and so involved in their businesses, that they typically put off long-term exit planning.  Therefore, this question raises potentially painful issues, because they know the answer, and that their procrastination can have devastating effects.

How many of you business owners are familiar with the TIPRA?  That’s the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2006, which extended the historic low 15% capital gains tax until December 31, 2010.  At that time, the TIPRA “sunsets,” and reverts to the 2002 capital gains rates in 2011, unless the rate cuts are extended or made permanent.  Given the challenges in our economy, all bets currently are on the tax rate increasing to at least 20%.

So, if you have been in a holding pattern, anxiously awaiting an economic recovery, perhaps this, along with glaring statistics (if you care to do a bit of research) pointing to significant decreases in business valuation multiples, you may begin considering other options. 

I was at the gym recently, and while on the elliptical, read a short expose about Bernie Madoff in Vanity Fair, which I picked up off the magazine rack by the treadmills. It was written by his longtime personal assistant, who was totally unaware of his behavior until he was arrested.  Reeling from the effects of such a violation of trust, her feelings did a 180 from total dedication to and admiration of Madoff to feelings of disgust and real hate.

We all love to hate Bernie Madoff.  His greed.  His arrogance.  His lies.  How he bilked his best friends out of their riches.  His betrayal of trust, ruthlessly absconding with his clients’ life savings, leaving them destitute while living in the lap of luxury.

When my daughter was between two and three years old, I wouldn’t say we suffered through the typical tantrums of the terrible twos.  But surely we lived with a child whose answer to every question was “No!”  I quickly learned the art of providing options.   

For example, at bedtime I never asked, “Stephanie, are you ready for bed?”  Instead, I’d pose, in the most cheerful, inquisitive voice I could muster without her seeing through me,  “Tonight, do you want to put on your red or your blue jammies?’

Worked like a charm, every time.  She’d be so thrilled with the ability to make her own decision, that she would forget that she didn’t want to go to bed, and instead, put her jammies on, brush her teeth, and head right into the sack!  Who was being taught the lesson?  That would be moi – a lesson in the art of options.