7 Habits of Highly Dysfunctional Solopreneurs

or 7 Turnaround Strategies for a Business in Distress

Stephen R. Covey authored The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, which is a business and personal development book about character, ethics, and values that lead to financial independence. Although Covey and I never met in life, I would meet him in the dream time and we would plan our mutual goal to break the chain of poverty through the power of self mastery.

Why does a child dream about Stephen R. Covey? He told me that he made a sacred promise to himself, God, and me to free humanity from the vices of laziness, excuses, and lack of education that stopped a person from seeking the tools to create financial freedom.

Lauryn Hill might call it miseducation rather than lack of education as we all learn through experience.

From dream time conversations, Covey shared that contemplating, meditating, or reviewing one’s choices was essential to raising the bar of success in your life.

As an 8-year-old, I didn’t understand the concept of financial freedom or enslavement, yet I remember his commitment to integrity that I agreed to walk the path of liberation on my own terms.

I thank Covey for being my dream time mentor and prepping me for an unusual ride. I also thank my polar opposite teachers — the charismatic con artists, bold liars, and doctrinal hustlers — who expressed the dark side of business so that I may teach how to do the opposite.

If your business is experiencing distress, may you look through a glass darkly of chaos to see, envision, and create business order through the power of futurizing.

This is 7 Habits of Highly Dysfunctional Solopreneurs with the 7 Turnaround Strategies for a Business in Distress.

Dysfunctional Habit 1: Self Deception

Self-deception in business is a mental process of denying or rationalizing away opposing evidence. Justification allows a solopreneur to ignore the truth.

Real-Life Example: Cocky-Doodle-Dude marries Jill, a woman who owns a cleaning business for commercial and vacation rental properties in Saint George, Utah. Jill hires Dude to manage advertising and sales. Jill manages training of staff and inspections.

Dude believes he is an incredible businessman with keen discernment for investing funds. After a year, Dude has spent $60,000 in savings on a new van with full body wrap and a full page ad in the Yellow Pages.

The van was unnecessary. The paint wrap with a phone number only generates complaint phone calls for Dude's bad driving. The Yellow Pages ad drives no phone calls.

Jill insists they need a website on page one. Dude considers a TV advertise.

Jill realizes she is great at holding her employees accountable but not her husband. She fires Dude.

Covey Habit 1: Be Proactive by taking responsibility for your own reaction. Choose how you react to other people.

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Dysfunctional Habit 2: Peter Pan Your Way Through Life

The mark of a dysfunctional solopreneur is one who refuses to grow up, lives in the past, and has frequent emotional melt downs to get his/her way.

Real-Life Example: Not So Nice Denice is a Public Relations manager who is loud, stinky, and screams at her video and targeted lead generation producer Ted. Ted wants to fire Denice, but he needs the business. He reminds himself that he has a personal mission statement, which is “Words either curse or bless. I choose to bless with my words.” He envisions a future that includes positive language from all his clients.

Ted asks Denice, “How can we work together in a way that is respectful to one another?”

Denice says, “I don’t really want to work. I want to live at the beach. It reminds me of my childhood.”

“Why does it remind you of your childhood?” he asks.

“Whenever I threw a tantrum, my parents took me to the beach and bought me toys. Screaming is power,” she answers.

“Denice, that may have worked for you as a child, but it doesn’t work for me. If you speak to me kindly, you will get what you want. If you insult me, we will part ways, respectfully.”

“Wow! No one has ever said that to me before.”

Covey Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. Think before acting. Futurizing creates success.

Dysfunctional Habit 3: Create Frivolous Distractions

It’s easy to create frivolous distractions as a business owner as it keeps you from focusing on important details. Here are some examples:

Socializing - Extroverts are skilled salespeople. Extroverts are skilled time wasters. If you have the gift of the gab, stop yourself and ask, "Is this conversation about business or am I talking to this person to receive attention?"
Meetings - Participating in meetings that do not require your presence or feedback. Is a person seeking you because they want to buy from you or does this person want to control your time because it feels powerful?
Social Media - Scrolling social media posts all day rather than researching and posting at one dedicated time slot. It’s worth watching a competitor video on Youtube to get ideas for your own videos. It’s not worth watching gaming videos unless you intend to be a Youtube gamer for a living.
Shopping - This is possibly the biggest offender on the list. Is this expense necessary? Consult an employee before buying a Keurig. She may find it toxic to drink coffee brewed from a plastic container. Avoid waste of company funds and waste of time shopping.
Client Appointments - When a client asks for an estimate, gauge your time well. Is this person just a dreamer or the real deal? Jamie loved scheduling appointments with different plastic surgeons to discuss a face lift and other work, yet she was never prequalified financially. Jamie didn't have a job to pay for surgery. She was a dreamer and a time waster, never scheduling surgery.

It is easy to turn on the TV while it's time consuming to take an online course about accounting, payroll, and taxes. Reading the news does not challenge your knowledge. Reading a book does.

Ignorance promotes procrastination, which distresses productivity.

Covey Habit 3: Put First Things First. Do the urgent first. If it is not urgent, eliminate it!

Dysfunctional Habit 4: Cheat Until You Get Caught

As a teenager, my family and I played the card game Uno a variety of ways, one of which was called “cheat until you get caught.” You were allowed to stack two or more cards on the deck when playing the hand.

If someone dared to question your move and you had cheated, you gained the whole deck of discarded cards as punishment. If you were never questioned, you could win the game with intention rather than luck.

Cheat Until You Get Caught Uno is how many human beings operate through life. It’s theft and it creates unnecessary pain.

Real-Life Example: Surcharge Sal, a handyman, is subcontracted by a vacation rental property company. He has plenty of work, yet he wants more money.

The company won’t raise his hourly rate, so he falsifies his hours by claiming he has done repairs that he has not done in order to get paid more. The vacation rental property company invoices the owners for the repairs. Owners check the work, recognize the invoices are false, and call the company to demand a refund.

Sal is caught and released from his contract.

Covey Habit 4: Think Win-Win. Ethics are a valuable code for human interactions and collaboration.

Dysfunctional Habit 5: Seek First to Destroy, Then Be Understood

It is easy to target a person with defamation, lies, and insults as it covers up a feeling of dismissal, inferiority, and failure. Blame is hidden underneath an emotional response of betrayal when someone else outshines your skill and talent.

Real-Life Example: Con Man O'Conner has a tire supply and remote repair service. The client has a flat tire on his street sweeper and requests a tire replacement. O'Conner doesn’t have the correct tire size, doesn’t tell the client, and chooses to hide this fact by repairing the tire instead. An hour after the repair, the tire goes flat as the tire has more issues than one hole. The client calls O'Conner. He is respectful but irritated. O'Conner feels shame. Rather than explain that he failed to be honest with the client initially, O'Conner blames the client for the failure. “You must have done something wrong!”

False declarations are insulting and damaging to a business relationship. It will also cause greater financial loss.

Covey Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then To Be Understood. Use empathetic listening to genuinely understand a person.

Dysfunctional Habit 6: Take Credit For All Success and Blame Mistakes on an Employee

Just as you would consult an employee for poor performance, a business owner is wise to give credit for excellent performance, especially when a client gives a glowing review.

Real-Life Example: Everything was reversed for Slim Kim! Whenever an owner called Slim Kim, a property manager, she took credit for all the good work completed by the personal assistant. The problem? The personal assistant never received the positive feedback from Slim Kim. Owners would call the personal assistant to complain about subpar cleaning, which fell under the responsibility of the Slim Kim. She never stepped up to take responsibility or hold the cleaning contractors responsible for poor work.

Ignoring your team to take sole responsibility for the success of your business is a flaw. Blaming them for your failure is fatal to your business. Loyal employees quit and take their excellent performance elsewhere.

Covey Habit 6: Synergize through teamwork.

Dysfunctional Habit 7: The Downward Spiral

The seventh of 7 Habits of Highly Dysfunctional Solopreneurs is business debt. Every solopreneur or business owner has their reasons for creating debt.

Sometimes debt is necessary for growth.

Other times debt is accidental.

When debt is created from poor decisions, you must consider an action plan before it becomes a house on a semi truck trailer going 90 miles per hour down the freeway towards a sink hole.

Real-Life Example 1: Hustlin' Hank inherits a construction company with his wife. He is great with customers and people, but he lacks ethics and self mastery.

He has a mistress that he compensates for her time and for his low self esteem. He feels big when he hands her a wad of cash. His wife is loyal to Hank and believes him when he says he’s “out in the field” to inspect a job site.

Hank’s mistress makes fun of him because she knows the success of the business is due to his wife, not him. Hank dumps the mistress and takes up gambling. He hides his bad habit by funneling money through vendors who create false receipts in his behalf.

Hank’s wife thinks the business is doomed as the repairs are higher than the income. The business is upside down and sliding deeper into Hank’s self created misery. Hank's wife discovers the deceit and files for bankruptcy and divorce.

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Real-Life Example 2: Flap Jack owns a video production company that has prospered by the success of a salesperson winning a multi-million dollar government contract. Rather than pay the salesperson the agreed upon commission which would pay the salesperson more than his income, Jack cuts the salesperson’s commission. The salesperson quits.

Jack hires multiple salespeople but none of them are able to achieve any success; they are a loss leader for his business. Debt builds from buying a large, commercial building and not attracting new business.

Soon, the only client that Jack has is the large government contract. His business is in distress from the debt to profit ratio. He makes a wise choice. He lays off all staff, sells the commercial building, and pays off his debt. He now outsources all video production while operating as the editor for his one client, which makes him profitable.

You can choose enslavement to debt, which is self victimization or you can clean up the mess.

Covey Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw of the consciousness by choosing an upward spiral. The upward spiral model includes exercising, prayer, good reading, and spirituality.

This concludes 7 Habits of Highly Dysfunctional Solopreneurs.

Deborah Bravandt

Business consultant, writer, and web designer with an interest in Metaphysics, Trail Running, and Being Happy. I help medical practitioners get visibility online.