Bills to pay, staff to train, marketing to run, competition to take on and profits to report. The list of worries on any entrepreneur’s mind is endless. The biggest worry however, is the looming thought of failure.
There are a number of factors that can contribute to the health of your business. These include the market that you’re operating in, the lifecycle of your service or product, the state of the economy, the team that you’ve hired, your available capital, competitors and technological advances that are born every day. With all of these factors weighing in on day to day operations, failure is not as uncommon as we would all like to believe.
Although failing at your business undoubtedly plagues your thoughts day and night it doesn’t mean your story is over, it simply means that it may be time to move on to the next chapter. You are one of thousands of entrepreneurs dealing with this same burden but the successful ones are those that can turn that failure into something positive to move forward.
You Are You. The Business is What You Do.
One the most common traits amongst entrepreneurs is tying the outcome of their business to their personal worth. Therefore, the business fails and that makes you a failure. Not true. Take Robert Herjavec, star of Shark Tank and Dragons Den who has a net worth of $100 million dollars. He recently revealed his suicidal thoughts when dealing with his post-divorce depression. In this case, his incredibly successful businesses did not reflect the same in his personal life or his mental and emotional state. The same too can be said for those businesses that are failing. You may find that your idea or business is dead in the water but that doesn’t mean that you have drowned.
A perfect example-Bill Gates. Yes, Bill Gates was not an overnight success. If fact, the richest person in the world today, with a reported net worth of $72 700 000 000 failed miserably at his first endeavour called the Traf – O – Data 8008 because the demo actually didn’t work! It was his ability to recognize the faults and harness his entrepreneurial drive that led him to create Microsoft and become a self-made billionaire at only 31 years of age.
There Will Be Set Backs
You may not hit ground zero but still find that your business feels like it’s far from the heights you have in site. All businesses deal with set back and some may be more devastating than others. As difficult as it may be, perseverance in this instance is critical to keep your business afloat.
Take Walt Disney for example. When he first came to MGM studios with Mickey Mouse he was shut down and told that women would never take to a life-size mouse on the big screen! He continued to deal with setbacks along the way and even had to shut down his first animation company in Kansas because he couldn’t pay his bills and was surviving off eating dog food! By the way, the net worth of the Walt Disney brand today is $179.5 billion.
Learn and Move On
Knowledge is power. Remember this when you feel like all odds are against you. The one thing I can attest to without any doubt is that learning from your mistakes is one of the biggest contributors to your success down the road. I have continued to learn from mine and will continue to do so as we build out the Wish Group day in and day out. Each time you go back out into the world, donning your entrepreneurial badge armed with your new knowledge, you are going to come that much closer to your Microsoft, Mickey Mouse or seat in the Dragon’s Den. As hard as it is to believe, failure can actually lead to your success.
Stay determined!
Frank