B2B Wins #2: Failure is an option
Nobody seeks failure but don't underestimate the value of failure.
fail·ure /ˈfālyər/ noun
1.lack of success. 2. The opposite of awesome. The crappy outcome.
I cannot play a musical instrument. Unlike singing, where my vocal chords conspire against me, I once believed that learning a musical instrument was at least possible. As a young man I dove into the saxophone. I was wrong. I can manipulate the instrument in the proscribed manner but I cannot make music.
Nobody sets out to fail. People aren’t wired that way. Even setting aside ego and peer pressure, there’s something deep inside our animal brain that wants to survive and thrive. Failure is death. Right?
A few weeks ago, I closed the startup I co-founded with a bunch of awesome folks. A seven year run came to an end. We failed for the reason that every company fails: We ran out of cash. The details, mostly around the fact that investors failed to materialize for our next stage of growth because of global economic uncertainty, are irrelevant. What we all do next is important.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur facing the myriad challenges of that life or an executive at a large company you’re going to fail at some point and in that moment you have a choice. Do you wallow in the misery or do you…
Embrace the Suck
(military, slang) To consciously accept or appreciate something that is extremely unpleasant but unavoidable.
Just like grieving we all should strive to accept the reality of our situation. Take time to ruminate (denial, anger, etc.) on what’s happened. Process it. Make peace with it. But don’t make too much peace with it.
Part of embracing the suck certainly deals with acceptance but it’s also a very action oriented concept. You embrace the suck and use that energy to make forward progress towards your goals.
Failure creates energy. Most of the energy is very negative. That’s the anger stage. While you don’t want to harbor the anger you do want to capture the energy of that moment.
That energy is very useful to what’s next. It’s the slingshot that is going to propel you forward. But first, let’s take care of the rumination.
I’m going to Disney World!™
Through a complete act of twisted serendipity I closed my company on September 30th and two days later got on a plane to Orlando. My son was getting married in the House of the Mouse. I had lots of energy, most of it negative, and Disney was just the place to set it aside.
Now truth be told I’m more likely to take my rumination on the banks of a river or along the banks of a mountain pond. But the celebration in Florida did the trick. As an added bonus, I got Covid.
You should take a moment to disconnect from the pain. Stepping away gives you that time to process. But don’t take too long. Don’t escape from the failure. Escape, for just a bit, from the pain of the failure. But remember, there’s this burning thing for what’s next and that burning thing is valuable.
Get back to work!
Now that you’ve taken a moment to step away, and hopefully you don’t get Covid during that time, it’s time to put all that energy to work. There are five things that have helped me focus on what’s next. I used all that pent up energy to attack these steps with vigor. My hope is that before that energy dissipates and I worked this like a project to get back on track.
Talk to your family. Your failure, whether it’s a small or large, is best processed when it’s shared with those closest to you. The success of your recovery from failure plans will largely depend on how you mobilize your resources and there’s no better resource than the ones you love.
Talk to your network. You know people. Reach out to them. Even if it’s just all the random people you have in your LinkedIn network. You’d be surprised how many people will take a meeting just to catch up and you want to be very clear about asking them for help. In fact, make it easy for them. Look at their networks (you may need Sales Navigator for that, pay for it), find a few people in those networks that you’d like to make, and ask for those specific introductions. You’d be surprised how ready people are to help.
Get smart. I have found that when you’re deep in a job or a project you lose track of all that’s going on in your profession, in adjacent swim lanes, and just in the world in general. Reconnect. For me, I had focused so much on one specific area of machine learning that I had neglected many other areas of emerging AI that much of my knowledge was several years out of date. I use Google Alerts to help me get back up to speed on emerging topics such as Conversational AI and Natural Language Understanding. Get back on social media. Track the subjects (hashtags) you’re interested in on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit. Read a lot. Listen to podcasts. Sign up for vendor webcasts in areas you have interest. Share your new knowledge on social platforms so that you can demonstrate your newfound knowledge to those who will hire you.
Make a plan: Whether it’s a new job with a new employer, a new role in your current company, or just getting back on your feet with your current employer you’re going to need a plan. That plan could be complex—a long-term job search—or that plan could be as simple as talking to your boss about how to climb out of the hole you’ve found yourself in. For me, I’m handling my search for what’s next just like you’d do a sales process. I have a Hubspot account. I’m tracking contacts, job opportunities, etc. That may be a bit overkill for what you’re doing but regardless, make sure you bring some structure to what you’re up to. Getting to the next step is often about working the numbers and working the process. Get to it. Use that energy.
Be flexible: If your failure has taught you anything, it’s that the best laid plans sometimes don’t play out. While it’s not always true, it’s true often enough to be worth remembering.
Some advice from AI
By the way, I asked GPT-3, a conversational AI technology, about this whole failure thing. It reads like a third-rate book on leadership but there is a bit of truth in all this pablum. Here’s what they had to say.
Prompt: What are the three things a person learns from failing to start a business and how could those lessons be applied to their next business?
Answer:
First, a person learns that it takes more than just a great idea to start a successful business. They need to have a clear vision, a strong work ethic, and a willingness to take risks.
Second, a person learns that it is important to build a strong team of people who share their vision and are willing to work hard to make the business a success.
Finally, a person learns that they need to be prepared to face challenges and setbacks along the way. They need to have the resilience to keep going even when things get tough.