Essential reading for ADR business owners: The entrepreneur equation

Don’t read this book if you’re uncomfortable with self-honesty. Or afraid that a careful appraisal of your motivations and fit for entrepreneurship might lead you to the answer you don’t want to hear. If you’re typically passive, going along day by day, hoping tomorrow’s business will be better, this book isn’t for you.

But it is for you if you welcome a frank and honest conversation with yourself about building a successful dispute resolution practice. Frankly, I think this is the kind of book that separates the wannabes from the ones who really do make it happen.

Author Carol Roth, the savvy small business strategist who was a featured speaker at last fall’s Mediation Business Summit, was kind enough to send me an advance copy of the book. I cracked it open during a snowstorm last week and couldn’t put it down. With every page I turned, I found myself repeating the same words in my head: Yes. Yes. Yes! Carol is the real deal.

You should know in advance that Carol doesn’t mess around with the warm fuzzies. She’s not here to make you feel good. She’s here to help you be good. The book has a single, bold purpose: To help you look unflinchingly at your business and yourself, then decide whether entrepreneurship is the right thing for you. If you enjoyed the way I approached my book, with ideas presented then exercises to bring them to life, then you’ll find Carol’s writing similarly practical.

The book shines particularly bright, at least as I think about mediators wanting successful private practices, in the section on assessing motivation for going into business. Carol guides you into considering, for instance, what you may be running from:

One way your ego interferes in a career path is by convincing you that running your own business gives you control of your own destiny. This feeling is, as with many ego-driven feelings, a bit misguided. The desire to control your destiny may actually be your ego trying to protect you from rejection. It tells you that if you aren’t working for someone else, or applying to work for someone else, they can’t fire you, and they can’t prevent you from getting hired or getting a raise. They can’t reject your work (i.e., have control over you) if you aren’t working for them in the first place.

…Whatever rejection you are running from will be exacerbated by a factor of at least a hundred when you are on your own and money is on the line.

If you’re thinking of starting your own private practice, or are overwhelmed or overworked in your current one, then The Entrepreneur Equation is waiting for you. It’s available for pre-order now and if you order by February 18, you’ll be helping someone else, too: Carol will match every book pre-ordered with a donated copy to SCORE, the national business counseling non-profit. For more special offers if you buy copies of the book this week, visit TheEntrepreneurEquation.com.