I Was Terrified of Failure
For most of my life I’ve been terrified of failure. I admit to a certain extent I still am. If you read this post on Autonomy, it might make more sense, as it started in school. I didn’t want to let people down or disappoint them, and if I didn’t make good grades in school, I wasn’t going to get a good job, which would mean I would be undesirable to potential mates… Which would mean I’d never have a house and kids and do cool things like go on vacations. I don’t know why my juvenile mind correlated things the way it did, and writing it sounds like I was a pretty fatalistic adolescent. So what did I do? I made good grades, and I was going to be “successful” — both personally and professionally. I was going to create an empire for myself flipping homes, I was going to buy an old home on a nice piece of property and rehab it, and I was going to have a handsome, loving husband with 4 kids (3 boys and a girl), and a dog or two… all by the age of 27. Ambitious, right?!
As I write this the funny thing is, that’s still partly my dream (less kids, more dogs maybe). I would love to rehab homes. I like to work with my hands, and at this point in my life I have an advanced degree in Marketing, a decent job (mostly doing what I love), but no husband, and at 31 I neither own my own home, and there is no empire to speak of. Oddly enough, this dream sounds eerily familiar to one of my best friend’s life, and she did do it. Bravo to her. Anyway, the truth of the matter is that in some ways I feel like a failure.
And I Still Failed
Part of the problem as to why that is has to do with 1) not knowing who I was, wanted I truly wanted to do and be, the things that I liked, the things I didn’t, the things I was good at, 2) I moved the goal posts around. As I got older my priorities and attitudes shifted. I wanted things that I hadn’t realized I’d wanted when I was younger, and 3) I still compared myself to others, rather than focusing on myself and what I needed and wanted.
So essentially I’ve spent a decade failing miserably at this thing called life. Every time I hit the ground personally and professionally I have to figure out a way to put the pieces back together. A lot of the time has been spent trying different things, learning myself, learning my limits, figuring out what will make me happy and where I want and need to focus my energy and attention, and it’s not the places I have been. I also had a lot of growing up to do, and a lot of partying to get out of my system. Some people need a few years… I needed 15ish give or take a few. But the crux of the situation is that deep down inside, I always knew what I wanted to do — write, along with owning some kind of business of my own (marketing consulting now). I was just scared to do it because I was scared to fail. So this Jim Carey quote really hits home.
My Real Life Entrepreneurial Failure
Technically, I wasn’t even a real entrepreneur. I was an entrepreneur by proxy. I was working with a startup, and at the beginning it had the air of entrepreneurship. A small motivated team who wanted to build software products in an industry that was in digital publishing. In my mind, I could be close to my love of writing without the real risks involved. It felt like a win-win situation. I would get all the glory and all the success for this amazing online publishing startup and I would be able to write in my spare time. I would make tons of money, and I would be at the top of my game, and all of my dreams would come true. I’d finally have the husband and the house and the kids and all of the great stuff.
The problem with entrepreneur by proxy is that you’re not actually the boss. Even though they tell you they want you to make decisions, they come back and cut your legs from under you on certain things. Your hands become tied and then you just shut down. Instead of branching out and doing my own thing, I stayed and let my creative and entrepreneurial light wither. I stayed 5 years in a job where my growth was stunted by false pretense and a hypocritical core value system of beliefs. Sure, I learned a lot, and what I learned got me to where I am today in my corporate job and my semi-break from entrepreneurship, but there’s no other way of putting it other than I failed hard.
What I originally set out to do was crumbled by a complicated platform that wasn’t easily understood by users, an unsupportive managerial team, unclear vision and goals, lack of funding, and a growing lack of interest. I was pulled in several different directions, and then I just started to just shut down. After 5 years the platform wasn’t getting the attention and love it needed—not my decisions. I was burnt out, and I wasn’t clicking with my team members any longer. There was a mutual decision that it was time to go. And there was no back up plan.
The Truth About Failure
The truth about failure is that there’s such a negative stigma around it, as if it were a bad thing. It’s not. Learn this lesson: If they say experience is the best teacher, then failure is the lesson that enables you to become greater and better than before. It’s what you choose to do in the face of failure that defines your success and your path in life. And it’s only people who either a) want to keep you down, or b) are terrified of failure themselves that would ever make you feel bad about failure. Truly successful people understand that failure, as a constant adversary is the true way to success. It took me many, many years to embrace the idea that failure is not only OK, it’s necessary. Failure is the most valuable lesson, and there’s no reason to be afraid.
The truth about failure is that there’s such a negative stigma around it, as if it were a bad thing.
One beautiful thing about failure is that spectacular failure teaches you that sometimes you have nothing left to lose. This probably relates more to my personal life than my professional life because I haven’t taken many spectacular risks in my professional life yet, but when you risk greatly, you fall greatly, and you land hard. However, once you get your bearings back then you realize the only place to go is up. There’s nothing holding you back, because when you’re at the bottom more failure genuinely doesn’t matter. You can take all the risks in the world, there’s no reason you have to stay in the self-loathing or self-pity of failure. And although it’s not necessarily and easy climb out and to the top, there’s also nothing holding you back any longer.
I started my own consulting company towards the end of last year, and so far it’s been an interesting experience. Along with all of the lessons I learned at the startup, I’m still learning lessons about navigating entrepreneurship. I’m trying, and in some ways I’m failing and in others I’m winning. I’m a starving entrepreneur because deep down I want and need the things that go along with entrepreneurship; however, I can admit that I lied to myself for a long time about what’s really required to be a successful entrepreneur. Also, I couldn’t get serious because I was so scared of failing that I didn’t try my hardest.
Starving Entrepreneur in Progress
That’s what this blog is about. Deconstructing lessons I’ve learned, and examining the qualities and skills that are necessary to bring myself from starving to successful. There’s a lot of them. At least when I wrote the outline for the topics I had enough to cover about a year’s worth of lessons. So stay tuned.
I feel like I’m at a point in my life where I know what I want. The vision is clear know, and I know the steps that I have to take. It’s doubtful I would have been able to get here without 10 years of failure under my belt. There are spectacular, wonderful things in my future. Also, I’m not afraid anymore. It’s true what they say that if you’re not failing your not trying, and the more you do, the more you realize it’s not the end of the world. So now we go forth and fail.
