Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post about some friends of mine – close friends whom I respect and admire – who fell into a hole when they received a damning review of their services on Yelp by a very powerful client. The hole they fell into was one of inactivity and fear.

But it was more than that – they fell into a hole of self-denial. And they created that hole when they allowed their business to be defined –in their own minds – by the opinion of someone else.

A full year later, they’re just beginning to crawl out of that hole. And they’re squinting in the bright light of the gorgeous day that’s before them.

In my first post, I talked about the inactivity. About HOW to get up and begin again when we feel bruised or crushed, when we feel overwhelmed by the size of our to-do lists, or underwhelmed by our own performances.

The answer to inactivity is relatively simple. It’s activity. Of any kind. In order to move forward, we need momentum. And we gain momentum when we’re in motion. You can read about that here.

I received an unusually large number of responses to that blog post. I had lots of readers come forward and say that similar things had happened to them – that they’d felt just the way these two talented gentlemen felt when they were attacked with criticism that was brutal at best, and destructive at worst.

And I think there are other elements of this story – this whole situation – that are ripe for discussion.

Perhaps the biggest issue here is how we allow ourselves, and our businesses, to be defined.

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