Posted by Raphael on Nov 21, 2008 in My Business Adventures, Rants | 0 comments

It’s been a while since I did any personal reflection on my business experience. I’m not sure if you guys know this, but I started this blog just right around the time I decided to start Lowe Studio in the first place over 3 years ago.  Kind of a way to document what I’m going through so I can look back.  Whodathunk I’d actually keep this up?

Well, lo and behold, 3 years now I can look back at post numba one and see how far I’ve come.  (You know the cool thing is that I kept every email I ever had with my wife when we first contacted each other close to 4 years ago now. How many other couples have record of their first words together?)  That’s kinda neat, yet sometimes I should have held back a little.  Who’s to say I’ll wanna run for President one day something here will come back and bite me?

I look back and I detected a lot of panic in my writing. Am I less paniced today. Meeeeh, not really. The challenges of business and the panic that goes along with it seems to always be there lurking in the back of my mind. The only difference is the panic has shuffled to new experiences. 3 years ago I think I was panicing about licensing fees & marketing.  Today it’s about the shoddy economy.  Each year there was something new to contend with.

God, like everyone else I sure hope my business can survive this bleak economy outlook for the coming year!  I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this before…the last time I heard we came through a recession like this was back in the early 80’s and I think I was in elementary school with nothing more to worry about then my homework and that cute girl sitting across from me in class.

Everywhere you look…tv, blogs, magazines, newspaper…it’s just the most depressing stories over and over.  Big businesses begging for bailouts, people losing their jobs, retirees losing their 401ks, etc etc.  It’s freakin’ bleak!

Frankly however, I’m sick of it.  I don’t wanna hear any more of this depressing bullshit.  As a business owner or freelancer, I think the moment you lose hope, you might as well close shop.  I cannot accept that there’s nothing I can’t do to get past this.  Reality might bite me whether I accept it or not, but I can’t control that.  I can only look ahead and stay positive.

I neat thing is I see that same spark in some of the other business owners I see in my networking meetings. We’re all concerned of course, but everyone’s cautiously hopeful.  That’s all we can do.

I might swear off watching the news like I did back in 2006 where I didn’t watch it for almost a whole year.

Enough of that drama.