Achieving Peak Performance

Understand how perceptions affect the way people do business with you

High altitude mountaineer and businesswoman Deshun Deysel suggests five ways that taking control of perceptions can help entrepreneurs on their ascent to business success. “We have to teach the world how to treat us and that starts with our own perception of ourselves,” she says.

When you hear the word ‘entrepreneur’ what do you think? What about when a company is described as a ‘small business’? Or, how about a ‘small black business’? Perception is truth and, for entrepreneurs, perceptions about you can make or break your chances of success. Yet, no perception is more powerful than the one you have about yourself. It shows others how to treat you and may well be the biggest obstacle you’ll ever have to overcome.

Tackling perceptions and changing unconscious bias in the marketplace is a key theme in building sustainable small businesses. Working with small businesses can be seen as high risk. And if a business is small and blackowned, the perception of risk can be even higher.

Few people know more about overcoming obstacles, both real and perceived, than professional mountaineer and businesswoman Deshun Deysel. Deysel chose to tackle the highest obstacle in the world – twice. As the first black woman to climb Mount Everest in the South African team that planted the country’s new flag on the summit of Mount Everest, Deysel fulfilled her childhood dream. She went on to scale five of the seven summits.