Things going pear-shaped or “the $#*% hitting the fan” are a reality of being in business.

The way we deal with those crisis situations speaks volumes on our character. It is one of the big psychological differences that widens the gulf between successful and struggling entrepreneurs.

This super short article is guaranteed to give you a powerful,”take away” tool for transforming disaster scenarios.

In a crisis situation, from flooded offices to losing that crucial contract, the business owner and entrepreneur relies on their psychological conditioning (whether they like it or not).

When confronted with an escalating, sticky situation our mind tends to naturally start grinding it’s gears. The direction that our “crisis thinking” takes us is what will ultimately determine our results.

For the entrepreneur, it is thinking alone that dictates if she comes out on top… or fails miserably.

That thinking begins with the questions we ask ourselves.

Ineffective Questions to ask during a crisis

• What has gone wrong?
• Why is it important?
• Whose fault is it?
• Why does this happen to me?

These are ineffective questions simply because of the kind of answers they produce.

Mentally answering the first two questions, for example, is only going to create a greater sense of loss and dread… as you contemplate the magnitude of the screw-up or disaster you’re facing.

The 2nd two questions are used by people trying to come to terms with the loss by pushing the cause of it outside of themselves. This kind of thinking robs you of the power to change your situation – focusing instead on blaming others for your plight.

Useful questions to resolve problems

• What (emotional) state would be most useful right now?
• How do I want to remember this in 6 months?
• What can I learn from this?
• What do I have the power to change?
• What resources do I have available?
• What have I got to be grateful for?

These questions demand that you focus on the most destructive part of any crisis: Your personal emotional state.

Secondly, you force yourself to frame the circumstances from a far more useful perspective… Very few disasters have ramifications beyond 6 -12 months.

By focusing on the personal learnings you can make, you reframe any negative situation as a powerful turning point in your entrepreneurial education.

Shouldering the responsibility to make changes forces us to realise the resources that we have – external and financial… or internal and mental.

Use these six questions to avert disaster and transform crisis into something useful.

… mastering this one skill will put you in the same league as the world’s top business leaders.

You can be sure that your business hero didn’t get there by asking “Whose fault is this?” … so neither should you!

My crisis…

Many years ago I lost an enormous corporate consulting contract… at the last minute. Having signed off the deal, I was literally waiting for the first advance payment to appear in the bank.

Like all inexperience entrepreneurs, since I was positive I would get this deal… I had “banked” on it and was relying on the payment to balance my budget.

When a natural disaster (seriously) forced my client to cancel the contract, I experienced a personal crisis of some magnitude. Awake til 4am, I wondered what I would do and where I would find the kind of cash I was relying on.

I personally spent days meditating on the first list of crappy questions. It was an extraordinarily dark time. When a friend (and fellow NLP person) emailed me the list of 6 “useful” questions, it turned things around for me.

The questions gave me the perspective (and necessary change of state) to dig my way out of potential ruin. I lost that particular client, but moved on to others.

In particular, I learnt an enormous lesson about budgeting on dollars that are not in the bank (don’t do it!).

For me, realising that I had so much to be grateful (despite my natural inclination to forget everything good in the world) was the most significant turning point.

Let me know (via the comment section below) when, in your life or business, these questions could have useful for you…

Starting a home business is something that everyone dreams about, usually when we’re stuck in a distressing 9-to-5 rut.

Wishes of making money at home usually happen around 3pm on Tuesday afternoon. Sigh.

The grim reality of home-based business opportunities is this: Only a tiny percentage of home entrepreneurs ever achieve financial freedom!

Want a guaranteed method for money-making? Get a job. Read on to discover the truth about why home businesses don’t work…

Multi level marketing, Coaching Franchises and Internet marketing packages all make irresistible offers of wealth, freedom and happiness coupled with an intense sense of urgency that convinces you to “buy-in” today.

The confusing thing is the testimonials you’ve all seen (“I tripled my corporate salary in three months and was able to retire!”)…are usually true!

This means that somewhere out there, people are making a whole boat-load of cash with these home business programs.

This promise of easy money is what convinces normal people to invest huge amounts of up-front cash to get the “opportunity” to make more.

What the salesman doesn’t tell you:

Only a fraction of program participants actually make money using these models.

What differentiates these success-story individuals from the rest of the “punters” is psychology.

There are three crucial criteria/skills that most home business owners lack

Number 1: Coach-ability

Most people who buy into home business opportunities believe they already “have-what-it-takes” to be a successful entrepreneur.

Instead of paying attention to the guru’s specific instructions, formulas or strategies… they do things their own way.

Funnily enough, gurus become gurus because they make a ton of cash and then systematize the formula to sell to others (to make even more cash). My point? They know what they’re doing.

It’s easier to make money in home business if you can simply, mindlessly follow the formula laid out for you. Make the cold calls, use the scripts, build the sales pages etc.

Do this, and success happens just as soon as you funnel enough numbers (prospects, site-visitors etc) through your system.

Most people think they know better and fail because they can’t be taught. Spot the irony.

Number 2: Sales skills

“Uh-oh, I didn’t realise I’d have to sell to people!”

- Famous home-biz owner’s last words

Wake-up call people. Being successful as an entrepreneur, in business of any kind, requires sales skills.

Most home business owners fail because they’ve never been taught simple sales skills or been conditioned to accept, for example, that 80-90% of your multi-level-marketing interviews will not work.

Without the built in, hard-as-nails toughness of a seasoned sales person… your home business will fail.

AND, part of being “un-coachable” is saying to yourself “… well, I’ll succeed despite my lack of sales skills”.

Sorry, you won’t. It’s an absolute, un-deniable necessity of ANY kind of business success.

Home business start-ups fail because they lack these two essential, mental skills. There is an additional, all important third skill (as my headline suggests), but I’m not going to reveal it now.

Instead, let me know what you think it is, by hitting “reply” and leaving a comment below.

There is a psychological “a-ha” (I call it a “Eureka” moment) that every successful entrepreneur just “gets” at some point in their career. Usually just before they absolutely master the science of achievement.

Thing is, it isn’t easy to “get”… it fact, it is one of the most painful lessons you’ll ever learn.

The secret lies in knowing this, expecting the hurt… and then going for it anyway. Really, the lesson is all about embracing pain.

Let me explain…

I’m in the zone. Hurtling at high speed straight down a super steep ridge… slicing and dicing snow into a huge cloud of powder behind me. Clearly, I am the the coolest thing skier on the whole mountain today.

Just when I’m feeling the most confident, everything changes.

Before I can blink, I’m airbourne and the crashing down the hill. In a motion described by experts as “tomahawking” (picture a spinning ax), I flip head over heals and finally come to a not-so-graceful halt with my head buried in the snow.

My entire body is aching like I just finished a bar fight with a 300kg gorilla. I try to get my breath back and simultaneously realise I’ve got snow all through my mouth, nose and trousers.

Worst of all, I have absolutely no idea how this even happened!

When you’re speeding along in business, sometimes you’ll fall flat on your face. It’ll happen so fast that it’s hard to pinpoint the cause.

Ultimate learning:

1. You now know where your learning curve is…

2. You now have the feedback you need to know when to start paying extra attention

See, as soon as I fell down the mountain, I limped back to the hut for a warm drink and a moment’s thought.

I realised that I hadn’t been focused – my attention was on performance (going faster and faster) and I wasn’t paying attention to the conditions underfoot.

This lack of focus in the right places caused me to catch a ski in a patch of soft powder. End result = me flying!

The ironic thing? Powder is supposed to be “ideal” for skiiers, but because I wasn’t paying attention, a pocket of this perfect snow totally ruined me.

The ultimate, ULTIMATE learning:

Without falling over, we cannot learn. The more spectacular the fall, the more neccessary and urgent it is to make the learning.

All really good skiers who know how to go fast, are always (as I learned) keeping an eye out for variable snow conditions.

This is something beginners don’t need to know about. When you’re slowly cruising down a slope, sudden ice or powder (or change fullstop) is easy to deal with.

… You make a few changes to your technique and keep on cruising!

It’s only when you’re on the fast-track that you need to watch out and utilise lighting-fast reflexes to adjust to the conditions.

Learning this is something I would never had the opportunity to do, had I not skiied (stupidly) fast in the first place.

When I go really fast, I realise that the chances of a fall increase dramatically. Still, I consistently ski to my absolute edge because that is the only way to rapidly increase skill.

I know to expect pain.

The big secret: If you’re not looking forward to the pain of falling over, you’re wasting your time and the pay off probably isn’t worth it either.

Anyone who finds skiing boring isn’t going fast enough. Anyone who finds skiing hard isn’t falling over enough.

Make your life, hobbies and business easy – Discover your absolute edge and push yourself beyond it. When you pick yourself up again and keep at it, you’ll soon realise that your personal “edge” is getting bigger and bigger….

When launching a new business, project or idea I believe every switched on entrepreneur should work hard to fail as quickly as possible.

“What?!” I hear you ask…

Yes, Failure  (with a big F) is the new success! It is, in fact, often more useful to fail than be successful. Let me explain why…

To take you back to yesterday’s metaphor, when I go skiing I constantly look to try new things:

Conquoring steer slopes, jumping bigger jumps and speeding through narrower chutes is what excites me.

All of these activities require a significant improvement in skill.

The thing about “skill” is that it is kind of like “potential”: Difficult to measure until you’ve actually used it.

When it comes to skiing, the only real measure of skill happens when you head down the extremely steep slope… without really knowing if you’re going to make it out okay. If you’ve got enough skill, you exit the chute (or jump etc) feeling good. If you’re not quite there yet, you fall over, get up and do it again.

The biggest problem I see in beginner entreprenures is the “imaginary business” attitude. This is when someone dreams up a brilliant business idea but procrastinates taking “the leap” because of fear of failure.

When you’re inexperienced and your business is still somewhat “imaginary” failure should be deliberately sought after.

It’s simple: the real world will test your ideas more thoroughly than your imagination ever could.

If you DO fall down, the process of picking yourself up and trying again will enable you to effectively “up-skill”

… this makes the next idea that much more likely to succeed.