SWOT Your Business
Entrepreneurs are almost always aware of the biggest opportunities and threats that lie ahead for their businesses, but not too often does that analysis happen on paper. For most, we keep it in the foreground of our minds, and we think that’s good enough. It’s not good enough.
If you document your business’s SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) only in your own mind, your analysis is likely incomplete. The physiology of your brain will place greater emphasis on the threats while dedicating fewer resources to the exploration of new opportunities.
According to Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Standford University, the brain handles positive and negative information in different hemispheres. Processing negative information generally involves more thinking. This means that your brain has an absolute advantage exploring opportunities rather than threats.
I encourage you to rely on your brain for processing your SWOT analysis but not for storing it. Put pen to paper and convince your conscience to forget the negatives. When you need them, they’ll be on paper. Good luck exploring your strengths and the opportunities ahead of you.