Scary Business Thoughts

There are so many scary business moments that we face throughout our careers.  Starting a new job, opening a business, accepting a promotion; all of these are challenging times in our career.  In the spirit of Halloween, we asked one of our clients, Philip Segal, to talk about the scariest time in his career.

Philip said, “I started the business during the fallout in the legal industry after the Lehman Brothers failure, when law firms were firing partners. It was like starting a stock brokerage in 1930 or 31. Timing was dictated because as a Canadian, my choice once my old investigative company closed was to get a high-paying job at a law firm within 30 days, start a business or leave the country. So I figured I would start the business a few years ahead of what I had planned. Pushing past the fear required acknowledging that I needed to learn a lot (since I knew nothing) about marketing. There’s less fear when you embrace the idea that you’re learning, so that you are allowed to try and fail at a bunch of ways forward until you see which of them work. Sometimes it’s a combination of steps, and you need to give it time.

Philip Segal of Charles Griffin Intelligence LLC, has been with Workspace by Rockefeller Group since 2009.