Upside or Downside, a Blessing or a Curse: It All Depends on Your Perspective

I’ve started reading a fascinating book called “The Upside of Stress” and it posits that the way you interpret stress changes the effect it has on you. If you think stress is bad for you, and is something to be avoided, then it will be bad for your health. On the other hand, if you believe it’s good for you, it will turn into something beneficial for your health. There is research in the book that backs this. A total game changer. 

This is relevant to many aspects of your life. I think about how this has colored my life in mainly bad ways. Growing up in Canada, in a financially challenged immigrant family, everything was looked at in a negative light. This is a very Canadian and British outlook. Scarcity mentality occurs in this environment understandably. Glass half empty, not full. I’m still working on fixing this myself.  

As I grow my business empire I run a fine & tight budget with clear plans. I leave a limited buffer and almost all of it is allocated in business costs, travel costs, and of course family costs. But as they say, if you want God to laugh, show him your plans. 

Something always goes wrong with this. 

I have to make some super expensive flight ticket changes because of some family thing. My family also tends to be pretty careless with money as I spoiled them. And that’s your job as man to provide well for your family so i cannot complain (too much). 

I almost always have to cover some surprise costs and some accounts receivable payments are usually very late. 

Or the HVAC at one of my rental properties craps out and I need to pay for a brand new one. 

Not cheap by the way. And even worse if it’s unaccounted for in my plan. 

Tenants stop paying. Or some of your startup investments go bust. 

I tend to be very rigid and an intense planner. I like things to run smoothly and life can be a challenge to this. Any deviation drives me nuts or just plain gets me down. It actually enrages me. 

However, now I try (stress try) to just roll with it. If you are running a startup when does anything go right? In fact, when has any of your life plans gone exactly as planned? If it did, life would turn out to be very boring in the end. You get both good and bad surprises.  Novelty is a driver for us humans.

I also understand that this is the cost of doing business. And because many of these surprise costs are related to business, it shows growth. Plus they are ultimately tax deductible and you get it back in some other way. It’s great to be a business owner in America!  

I try to look at these setbacks and challenges as good for me. Setbacks are normal. They highlight issues in my thinking and plan. Unexpected budget overages mean I’ve made some miscalculations that I need to fix. Family costs overages just means I need to go out and make a whole lot more money. Usually by building a better system or doing better investments. Or that there is some breakage in my present business process. 

You can always be improving and getting better. These setbacks are the path to more prosperity.