Donny Deutsch, God of entrepreneurial dream making, discusses this topic frequently with his guests. Most of them agree that you have to fail. In fact, most say you can't really succeed unless you fail.
Then, I read an except from a book called Bounce by Barry J. Moltz, in my BeE magazine. He says that "business leaders and entrepreneurs must acknowledge and even value failure as a natural part of the business cycle so they can anticipate, acknowledge, and recover from blows."
Wow. This sort of ties in with my very first post about holding my nose and jumping. Sometimes you can't know what's around the corner, and that's okay. Because the alternative is KNOWING what's around the corner. If everything is laid out for you and there are no more surprises, good or bad, would that make life better? I'm not so sure.
While most people don't like bad things to happen to them, failure included, most people would agree that failure and hardships do show you what you're made of. The more you can get through, the more you feel confident in what's waiting for you around that corner.
I read a book once, Growing a Business, from the guy who started Smith and Hawken. In it, he discusses how he feared each day and what problems would come with it. Each day a situation would arise that would seem like a crisis, but by the end of each day he had solved the crisis.
Finally, it dawned on him that every day there would be something to hit head on. He went to the office saying, "What problem can we solve today!?" With this new attitude he was able to take on tasks easily without worry, and most importantly it freed his mind up to think about new positive things, since he didn't have to worry about what was to come.
Being an entrepreneur/business owner is certainly interesting and challenging and entertaining. There's never a dull moment.
Embrace failure for what it is, and do what is necessary to get your busienss to the finish line.
Most recently, while watching Meet the Robinsons with my sons, (which I believe has the best message of any kid movie with its motto of "Keep moving forward") I heard a simple, yet powerful thing. One of the older siblings in the future said, after Lewis had failed at fixing the peanut butter and jelly shooter, "That's okay. "From failure, you learn. Success, not so much."
I've had multiple business that didn't go anywhere, but they were all half hearted attempts at something I didn't have my heart in anyway. However, each of those failures taught me something that I have used in DipSticks. I have taken each lesson learned and applied as often as possible in this adventure.
Nobody knows what's around the corner, and I'm okay with that. I hope it involves producing the most unique, high quality gourmet pretzels in the world, but if it ends up being diaper duty at the retirement home, I'm cool with that. Knowing me, I'd probably figure out a way to turn that into a business, too.
Keep on failing!
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