Overcoming the Dark Side of Your Business

This diagram is from Roger Hamilton's Wealth Dynamics program and shows the eight wealth profiles he identifies. Can you identify whether you are a Creator, Star, Supporter, Deal Maker, Trader, Accumulator, Lord or Mechanic just from the name?

If your Million Dollar Desire is to start your own business, or to take your existing business to the next level, you are in for interesting times. But as fun, as interesting and as challenging as it might be to run a business, there are some things that aren't fun for a business owner. I call these the Dark Side of running a business. The Dark Side of your business are the absolutely have-to-do's you don't like to do and avoid like the plague. The bad news is that these are the areas which can and will cause you to fail in your business. The good news is that there are people who would love to do the things you hate doing.

Your Dark Side in business is on the other side of the Wealth Dynamics square from your profile. Most people are naturally inclined to be brilliant at one of these profiles and to have some talent in the adjacent areas. I am good at innovation (Creator); I also have some talent at promotion (Star) and systemization (Mechanic). My Dark Side lies on the opposite end of the circle: Trader (sales), Accumulator (accounting) and Deal Maker (making great deals).

Any business person knows that some were meant to innovate, and some were made to sell, some were made to play and some were meant to keep score. But how do you identify those people? As opposed as I generally am to profiling, Roger Hamilton in his Wealth Dynamics books and material suggests eight distinct profiles for business people that are helpful in making sense of a complicated set of relationships.

Record keeping , for instance, is my nemesis. I used to think everyone hated accounting; imagine my surprise at finding someone who loved to track every penny and make things balance. It was almost a religion for them, a vision of the underlying order in the universe. There are people who enjoy bringing order to the chaos, and they can be just as surprised to find someone, like me, who enjoys creating the chaos and living in it. (Maybe not. I think there's more like me than them.)

Bottom line: I believe you can start and run a business by yourself, but you will not enjoy all its aspects, or its financial rewards, until you find people to bring light to your Dark Side. Ideally, you will find people to cover all of the activities on the Wealth Dynamics square with their primary and secondary inclinations. When we begin a business, we naturally gravitate towards and want to partner with people who are like ourselves. We need instead to find people who enjoy doing the things we do not, even when we aren't completely comfortable with those people.

Common interests make good friendships; common causes make good partnerships. Make sure you are enthusiastically heading in the same direction down the same road, even if you are pulling different parts of the wagon

Here's a synopsis of the eight business activities I've extrapolated from the Wealth Dynamics square, and the wealth profile associated with each:

Innovation - creative ideas, products, new ways of doing, thinking and being; Creator.
Promotion - becoming known, name recognition, identification, publicity; Star.
Support - helping, providing solutions, supporting customers; Supporter.
Deal Making - Pursuing large value/volume business arrangements; Deal Maker.
Trading - Generating transactions and revenue, sales; Trader.
Accumulating - Tracking income and expenses, accounting, building assets; Accumulator
Profit Building - Generating empire through investments, subsidiaries, subcontractors, residuals; Lord.
Systemization - Systems formalization, replication and improvement, quality control, franchising; Mechanic.

What do you do until you meet and bring on the missing members of your team? You can use the Wealth Dynamics' diagram to keep you on track, wear each hat you're missing, think about what you would do for your business if you were that profile, and then produce the work that needs to be done by that profile when it needs to be done, rather than letting it fall by the wayside.

For example, let's say you're an introvert, and you hate talking to people, especially in front of a large group, but you put on the Star hat and you realize a presentation needs to be done now for the good of your business. You'd rather eat a frog. What do you do?

Eat the frog. Even though the frog is from the Dark Side, it is a necessary frog. Every day, before breakfast you practice. You set up the presentation. You commit. You do it. You promise yourself to find a Star to do this for you next time, but you eat your frog now.

If you can eat your frog, every day, you will set your dream team and your Million Dollar Desire speeding towards you.

(See the The "Green Frog" Secret To Acheiving Anything You Want video on YouTube for more cute tips on eating the frog.)

Wealth Dynamics Website
Want to learn more about Roger Hamilton, Wealth Dynamics and his wealth profiles? Check out this website.