Coping with Failure

There are unlimited mantras, quotes, and stories dedicated to coping with failure. This is perhaps because it is a well-accepted fact that failure is simply a part of life. Starting and running a business is often subject to the same outcome. In fact, failure is often a welcomed disposition in the discourse of entrepreneurship because it helps to shape and reshape a successful business.  Failure should never be a deterrent from pursuing your business goals. Rather, it should be embraced and perhaps anticipated. In this article, we’ll explore coping with failure in business and using it as a sword rather than a shield.

 

Business failure can span anywhere from an unsuccessful marketing or promotional method to the complete termination. Regardless of what failure looks like in this particular context, it has an impact on the psyche of the self-employed individual who started or took over the business. 

According to Bruno, McQuarrie, and Torgrimson in an article published in Journal of Business Venturing, the self-employed appear to have an emotional relationship with their business.  More specifically, the motivation for managing one’s business spans beyond personal profit, into loyalty to a product, loyalty to a market and customers, and the need to prove one’s self. When you consider these elements of this emotional relationship, it becomes clear, first, why failure elicits such a huge response in business and second, why the way in which you recover is much more important than the failure itself.  So, how do you cope? How do you recover?

1. Learn

                       

One of the best ways to cope with failure in business is to make a conscious decision to learn from it. In a 2003 article published in Academy of Management Review, Dean Shepherd suggests, “learning from business failure occurs when you can use the information available about why the business failed to revise your existing knowledge of how to manage your own business effectively.”  This requires the ability to stare failure in the face and accept that you are still a student even when you run the business. It further requires an ability to “revise assumptions about the consequences” of previous decisions, actions, and omissions.  When you can approach your failure in an evaluative manner, you are more likely to have a successful outcome.

2.  Anticipate and Rehearse

“Don’t make the same mistake twice”.  This warning cannot be echoed loud enough in business. When you’ve done something wrong or insufficient a first time it should prompt you to be more careful the second time around. In other words, you should anticipate an error; rehearse with that error in mind and control for it.  Many entrepreneurs have had to test and retest prototypes continuously to ensure it is failure proof.  Sometimes this means getting out of your comfort zone and being completely transparent.  The more you dissect your product or service piece by piece and ask yourself “how can this fail”, the closer you get towards a product or service you can proudly stand behind in success. This will not make you failure proof, but it can certainly minimize the outcome of same and teach you more about yourself as a business owner.

3.  Think Positively

One of the immediate responses to failure is negativity. A close second is doubt. These two devils can drive your business into hell if you allow them to manifest and percolate.  When you’ve come face to face with failure, take a few minutes to cry and scream if you have to. But once those minutes have expired, commend yourself for your effort, feed your mind with positive affirmations, and most importantly, saturate yourself with acceptance. Accept that the one thing that makes you most like any other business is your susceptibility to failure. Once you’ve acknowledged that, immediately begin rebuilding, modifying, or changing your direction.

4. Start Again

Some of the biggest companies that exist today have failed hundreds of times before getting their big breaks; Apple and Disney are prime examples. Failing just might be the answered prayer you didn’t know you need. It can challenge you into success. Don’t pressure yourself with deadlines if your product isn’t ready. Take your time with your craft. If you love it, you’ll be tender and starting over will only allow you to become more intimate with your business. Embrace a fresh start.

Failure is a part of life and that life doesn’t stop when you acquire a business. Instead, it becomes much greater. Consequently, your failures will increase, but so will your successes.

How to Acquire a New Skill

We are blessed to live in an extraordinary epoch of human history. At our fingertips is a repository of information (the internet) that most of our ancestors could scarcely have imagined. On the other hand, ours in an era in which the aptitudes demanded by employers and businesses is in near-constant flux. The ability to adapt and acquire new skills is a necessity for anyone who aspires to get ahead in the modern economy.

But the benefits of acquiring a new skill extend far beyond the professional realm. By picking up a new hobby, learning a new language, or mastering a new technique, you can broaden your social circle and increase your understanding of the world. You may even stand a better chance of avoiding dementia later in life.

At first, the task of learning something new will often seem daunting. However, if you approach the challenge the right way, the process needn’t be all that complicated.

•  Break it down.

This is one of the most important pieces of advice for anyone who faces a seemingly enormous endeavour. Many big projects comprise a series of smaller, discrete components, each of which may be completed with relative ease.

•  Baby steps.

This point flows naturally from the last. Once you have deconstructed a major endeavour into a series of constituent parts, set a reasonable pace for yourself as you work toward completing each one. If your object is to learn a foreign language, or how to encode computer software, limit yourself to a lesson or two every day. Don’t concern yourself too much with the destination; focus instead on the process, and on mastering the specific baby step you’re taking right now.

•  Modeling.

Can you think of a person who excels at the skill you’re attempting to cultivate? What does that individual do very well? What are her habits? How did she get so good?

The practice of inheriting aptitudes by observation and emulation, also known as modeling, is a pattern of behaviour common to both humans and animals. Children practice a form of modeling instinctively when they learn to speak, read, write, and recognize important features of their environment. When striving to gain a new skill, it helps to think like a child (where modeling is concerned, at least).

•  Be patient.

Few skills can be acquired overnight, and everyone learns at her own pace. By placing undue pressure on yourself to develop a skill rapidly, you will risk sapping the fun out of the activity. This is counterproductive; your brain won’t build new neural pathways as effectively if you allow yourself to become frustrated or distracted by “If only” thoughts. Take your time, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes in the course of learning.

•  Be disciplined.

Set aside a certain amount of time each day for the acquisition of the desired skill. Make a habit of it, and stick to the plan. Even if you can spare no more than ten minutes per day for the activity in question, you will find that your progress, albeit slow, will be positive and fairly constant. However, if you neglect to exercise the proper mental (or physical) muscles for a while, rust will start to form, and you may experience setbacks in the learning process.

•  Look forward, and occasionally...back.

While it’s obviously important to have a goal in mind and “keep your eyes on the prize,” it can be very gratifying to occasionally reflect on the progress you’ve made so far. This can be particularly heartening in those moments when you feel you’re struggling. After all, there’s little point in giving up if you’re already halfway to your goal.

Skill Building on the Commute

Last week proved to be revelatory as, for the first time in over five years, I was forced to drive to my workspace. The circumstances that made the drive necessary are inconsequential, but as I stared at the city skyline from the highway with the car idling in park, and being forced to breathe in exhaust fumes on a particularly smoggy summer day from all the congestion, I learned a few things.

Practice Gratitude – and math!

 

The first thing that occurred to me as I watched a particularly ornery man make obscene gestures and honk at a car that had changed lanes in front of him while moving at a mere 5 kilometers an hour, was that I was so thankful that this was not my life. My being on that stretch of road during rush hour was a rare inconvenience, but for so many people it is the norm. In total, I lost over 3 hours of my day in traffic. If that pattern was a daily certainty it would mean roughly 15 hours a week, 60 hours a month, and, based on a 50-week per year work cycle, 750 hours every year lost in traffic. Even if I retired early at 55, a 30-year professional career could mean as much as 22,500 hours of my life spent behind the wheel bumper-to-bumper with other cars.

This is where my mind wandered on that fateful day, wondering how different my life would be if I hadn’t developed my career in such a way as to be able to do my work from anywhere. In case anyone is doing the math, because yes, that’s the kind of time I had while in traffic, those 22,500 hours could represent and, are equal to: 937.5 days, or just over 2.5 years of your life. I wondered what my price would be to devote that much of my life to a daily commute.

Learn a Language

For a while I couldn’t get over how depressing the situation I was in was. But then I decided to look at it a little differently. Although the most important thing is to always be mindful when behind the wheel and to arrive at your intended destination safely, it’s also very possible to do something passively, and productive, while you drive. I figure most people listen to the radio just as I did, but when I heard the same song twice during just one leg of the commute I thought that the practice couldn’t be sustainable.

I’d be hard pressed to recall any of the facts from any of the courses during my four years at university, but one thing that I do recall is that lectures were always one hour and a half – much like the commute. Audio learning CDs and downloads are now available for just about any language you can think of. Bilingualism is becoming a rare skill and it’s hard to think of a better way to improve one’s marketability than by learning a foreign language. Better yet, it can be the gateway to many life altering and rewarding opportunities as languages can take you around the world.

The Learning Doesn’t Stop at Languages

Over the past decade podcasting has become an enormously popular way to share and absorb information. Anyone with an itunes account can download engaging and informative podcasts about everything from health, to history, to science and technology, sports, politics, and spirituality. There is truly no shortage of topics and ideas to stimulate your mind if you only gave them a chance. I would wager that any devoted listener to Dan Carlin’s hardcore history could easily become conversational about world history with any university tenured history professor in just a couple of months. Many podcasts are free, or cost as little as $0.99. You can even download university lectures from some of the world’s most renowned universities. You don’t get course credit, but it doesn’t set you back nearly as much as actually attending the classes.

Dictate the Next Great Novel

What an age we live in! With the right set of tools you can actually dictate all of your ideas onto a voice recorder while at the wheel and then have a computer program turn your dictation into text. A little further down the line that text can become a manuscript, and, if you play your cards right, that manuscript can become a bestseller with movie rights, and can be your ticket out of traffic forever.