WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO BE A BUSINESS OWNER // Kyle Thompson, MBA, CEPA

I’ve actually had this blog post written for a while, but the time never felt quite right to post it. I originally wrote the bulk of it while sitting in the hospital waiting on the results of a scan to see how bad my kidney cancer actually was* (I’ve had an especially rough year so far). The content here is pretty personal, and I wasn’t sure how well it would resonate with others. Now that we are halfway through 2020, which will likely be a very long chapter in history books, the time feels right. Let me start by saying that starting a business is never a good financial decision. Around 80% of businesses don’t make it past the 5 year mark, and 80% of those that do have no enterprise value and can’t be sold. 80% of the ones that do sell are not happy with the proceeds and have profound regrets. In other words, less than 1% of all business owners experience financial success beyond the income of the company itself (if the company is ever profitable at all). On top of financial risks, business owners forfeit the “rights” and benefits that we feel traditional employees are entitled to. Reasonable work hours and paid time off are gone, along with health care and retirement plans. And, until the changes in the CARES Act this year, business owners weren’t eligible for unemployment. Your chances of success or failure lay squarely on your own shoulders, and there is no safety net. In fact, you can do everything right and still fail due to poor timing or luck. In the four months between being diagnosed with cancer and the subsequent surgery, I barely took any time off, and was back to work the week after surgery. I would never expect that of an employee. Despite all this, new businesses are formed every day. It’s not likely people are unaware of these risks, at least intuitively. If you talk to successful owners and entrepreneurs, they will gladly talk about how hard their journey was, and all their failures and mistakes along the way. Even unsuccessful ones rarely regret trying. Why is this? Who in their right mind when they could easily just go get a job? As one client and good friend once told me, “it was something I couldn’t NOT do. I had to do it.” When I pressed him further, he said “I was called to it. This was my opportunity to create something bigger than myself and leave my stamp on the world.” This reminded me of the Steve Jobs quote: “I just want to put a dent in the universe”. This is something that has always resonated with me (Jobs’ enormous ego aside), because it reflects the enormous impact we as business owners are capable of having on our employees, our customers, and our communities, as well as our own lives. I believe that when we focus on maximizing our impact on all of those stakeholder groups, we create more valuable, resilient companies, and we find more personal and financial fulfillment. When I first wrote this, I was awaiting the results of my scans, and knew my prognosis might not be so great. I had done a personal development exercise several years ago where you write your own eulogy, where the idea was to focus your energy on how you wanted to be remembered. I wanted to be remembered for improving the lives of others and making the world a better place in my own unique way, and that is what has driven me since that day. I had lived my life with purpose, but there was so much more that I wanted to do, and the thought of leaving those things unfulfilled is what made me cry.

Fast forward to today, I am incredibly thankful for my cancer experience**. It reminded me why I started Leetown Advisors and Leetown Business

Solutions. It reminded me to live intentionally. It reminded me that what I do matters, and that all my actions will have either a positive or negative impact on the world.

With all the current issues affecting our world, from pandemic to racial inequality, I want to remind my fellow business owners that what you do matters as well. I challenge you to focus your energy on creating value for your employees, your customers, and your community. We have the power to change the world, and it is our responsibility to lead the economic recovery from COVID-19, and make tomorrow better than today. I’m willing to bet if we focus on these things, we end up better off as well. As the cliche goes, “a rising tide lifts all boats”. *It ended up being stage 2 renal cell carcinoma, which was eventually surgically removed along with the kidney itself. **I actually had two other brushes with death in the same time frame. It was a burst abdominal abscess that led to the discovery of the tumor. Shortly after surgery, I also had a severe pulmonary embolism. 2020 has not been my year.