Myat Nyein - How to build your own business

Before you decide to embark on the exciting journey of becoming your own entrepreneur, I suggest you take a moment to examine yourself. See if there are any mental barriers blocking your path. These barriers can prevent you from succeeding in your endeavors. Identify them now. Then take immediate action to eradicate them.

What's holding you back? There must be a reason why you're holding back, otherwise you wouldn't have read the book to the point where you did.

I failed to identify my psychological barriers in time. As a result, I had to give up my first successful business. My case can be summed up as a midlife crisis. Most of us experience such crises in our forties. Some experience them earlier. Others experience them when we are approaching sixty and are about to retire. In my case, the crisis struck like a bolt of lightning at the age of fifty.

I am the founder of a very successful advertising agency. I am the president, managing director, and majority shareholder of the agency. (Lightning struck twice.) Our agency's stock is valuable. It's solid. | Safe and sound. The only way to ruin the business is to kill the president of the agency or his wife.

But I lost the business. I didn't lose my own shares in it. It was because the whole business that I had conceived, that I had worked so many hours a day to build, that I had been offered a huge profit two or three months before my finale, had been handed over to a large company for a single pound sterling. I was even relieved to have a large company to take over. Because the £100,000 overdraft was settled and a major controversy was avoided, or so I thought at the time.

Why did my business fail? I asked myself this question every day for years. I never got the real answer. Because I was looking for it in the wrong places. • I blamed the excessive growth. (Not true. I like to argue.) I blamed the bank overdraft. (Not true. The business was strong. I could pay back the overdraft.) I blamed the key management. (Not true. They all worked for the good of the company.) I blamed domestic problems. (Not true. My late wife was stronger than I was at the time, even though she was no longer alive.) I blamed my old man, John Barleycone. (Not true. Consulting with a consultant was not the main reason.)

Where did I go wrong? As I walked through the rain that day, in great distress, the truth came to me softly. The answer I found was the key to the peace of mind I was searching for. In fact, I had given away everything I owned.

I was fifty years old. I had a successful business. I had a lot of money. I had a small house. I had three cars to boast about. I gave it all away. In short, I lost my self-confidence and ran away. Why?

• It's clear. I don't deserve success yet.

Not only did I lose my own business, my livelihood and my personal wealth, I was also investigated by the Inland Revenue for seven years. I don't want anyone to go through what I went through. (The Inland Revenue's efforts were so detailed and thorough. In the end, they refunded me over £14,000.)

Learning to build success

When are you ready to build success? It's easy. Once you've identified the reason that's holding you back, you're ready. If you're only twenty years old when you discover that reason, you're good to go. But for many people, it takes a lot longer to discover and accept that truth.

So what is holding you back? Now is the time to identify the obstacle, analyze the situation, and get your life moving again.

What's bothering you might be one of three common phrases these days: Being laid off, being retired, or being an outcast.

Are you feeling down because you're unemployed? Are you tired of hearing people say you're not getting any older? Are you constantly told that you're too young? Or are you stuck in a job that's not making any progress?

Overcoming psychological barriers

Let’s examine each of the psychological barriers that can affect your situation. Are you feeling down because you’ve been laid off? Being laid off can be hard to bear. Isn’t it? Yesterday you were just one of the many people in the crowd. Today, you’re wandering around alone, not knowing what to do. Your employer may have given you a little bit of a stipend. But it’s rare that you’ll be given a generous stipend. That little bit of stipend is gone, and you’re not even holding it in your hand because of unnecessary things, such as paying off loans, paying off purchases. You’ve lost your job. What do you do? | Instead of sitting at home and feeling down, wouldn’t it be nice to go out and do something for your future? You actually have a job to do.

Are you retiring too early? If you don't plan your retirement years properly, you could be in for a rough patch. Some people retire too early. They have a lot of money in their hands. But they feel overwhelmed by the feelings of inadequacy.

Even if you are in good health and strong, you still need an outlet for your energy. And what better outlet than one of a business nature?

If you are in a situation where you don't need profits, you can donate those profits to worthy causes. Read on.

Are you feeling depressed because you're constantly being rejected?

I have faced this situation many times. After losing my own business, I opened an office in my home and ran a marketing consulting business for several years. The business was successful. But then the recession hit. In October 1990, the effects of the recession hit me too.

I have become a luxury item for my employers. The money they pay me has become an additional expense. They can no longer pay me for consulting services.

Day after day, I was getting a steady stream of termination letters. One employer, it seemed, still thought he could use me somehow. He hired me as his employee. I worked there for 12 months. Then he too started making losses and had to close the business.

After that, I dabbled in a few unprofitable activities for a while. Then I worked as an advertising agent for a big publishing house. It didn't take long before they hired me as a contract negotiator. Then they fired me. Before long, their business collapsed. Not a very impressive story. Read on.

Are you feeling helpless because you are unemployed?

If that's the case, I'll tell you for your own peace of mind, "Don't do it." Look for the right places. There are many people who can help you. I'm not saying that lightly. I've been unemployed myself. But once I realized that I had to find places to turn to for help, I was able to turn my life around. Read on.

Who said you're old?

No one has ever dared to say that to my face. But they must be thinking the same thing. So what? They are wrong. I can prove that they are wrong.

Who says you're too young?

And here they are wrong. Bigly wrong. The future of a country lies in the hands of its youth. You are never too young or too old to learn how to become an entrepreneur.

Are you stagnant, not moving forward or backward?

You are currently working a salaried job. It pays well. You have a position. You have a secure future. But you are bored to death. You have to eat sand and grit, and you have to throw away grease and grime. So do something about it.

What are the things that make you hesitate to fight back? It often takes a long time to discover the true nature of the things. You have to examine your mind a lot, to analyze it. In the meantime, the answer often comes to you in a flash.

In my case, the answer came to me the day I lost my job. After years of searching for answers in all the wrong places, everything just fell into place. Within a few hours, I had identified the main problem that was bothering me. Not only that, but I was ready to fight to get my life back on track.

My personal tragedies have brought me the answer. It is anxiety that is holding me back. The only way to recover from my life is to start my own business in the same field that has left me stranded. I will work hard to make that business thrive without any worries.

This life-destroying emotion has been eating away at me all my life. It hasn’t been outwardly gnawing at me. It hasn’t been apparent in my words or my actions. But it’s been lurking in my subconscious. It’s been haunting me before I’ve even thought about it, said it, or done it. I can’t shake the anxiety. It’s taking over my previous plans. It’s taking control. The result is ruining the progress of those plans.

I'm good at building a recovery path. I'm very good at it. I'm good at the industry that kicked me out earlier that day. Contract work, negotiation work. What's the deal? I'm not personally involved in it, but I have a lot of knowledge about other industries. I've also had over 30 years of practical experience in the advertising world. So I think I have the perfect skills to become a successful book publisher.

There, at that moment, I made a decision. I calculated. Both capital and other supporting materials