Most Important Skills for a Small Business Owner
Contrary to expectations, the most crucial skills for a small business owner are not technical proficiencies but rather "emotional management," including self-compassion and avoiding perfectionism. This involves "holding a lot of compassion for [clients]...and for myself," and actively unlearning ingrained behaviors to better support client growth and healing.
Emotional Management, Self-Awareness, Compassion, Resilience, Self-Care
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Howard Zuo
Business Owner
Small Business Owner
Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011
N/A
Engineering - Chemical
Aerospace, Aviation & Defense, Coaching, Speaking & Writing
Entrepreneurship and Business Owner
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Emotional management is key to success, involving self-compassion and managing emotional responses to clients and challenges.
2. Prioritizing self-awareness is crucial for avoiding emotional hijacking and projecting personal feelings onto clients.
3. The ability to guide and empower clients to grow and heal independently, rather than trying to fix everything, is a vital skill.
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
I think the most important skills aren't necessarily about excelling in a specific technical area. The biggest skills, ironically, are all about emotional management.
For example, it's about not being hard on myself, not being a perfectionist, and not hyper-optimizing. When I'm writing, "good enough" is good enough. I should send it and not spend a thousand hours trying to edit every little thing.
When working with clients, it's important to have a lot of compassion for them and for myself. Many of my clients have had experiences similar to mine. Because of this, it's very important for me to be self-aware, manage my feelings, and not project.
I need to avoid emotional hijacking, where I feel compelled to fix everything. I had to do a lot of programming to unlearn the idea that as a man, I should fix things. Instead, I'm here to equip other people to scale, grow, and heal themselves.
So, I would say those are easily some of the top skills I need for my job.
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