Three Ways to Respond to Failure
By: Derick Van Ness
Tags: Resilience, Failure, Entrepreneurship, Business, Decision Making

Fifty percent of small businesses fail in their first five years. Even if you make it past the first five years, the risk of failure is always there. It’s just a part of life for entrepreneurs.

How do we get past the fear and pain that often come with failure, and how do we bounce back when it happens?

Here’s the truth: You WILL have pain. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you will take some hits to the head and get a few bloody noses along the way.

However, all mental suffering — the guilt, fear, and anxiety — CAN be dealt with. I’ve learned from personal experience that each of us usually falls into one of three categories as we’re learning how to deal with the changing tides and inevitable failures of running a business. We can be the captain of the ship, the leaf tossed in the ocean, or the surfer riding the waves.

I Made Millions (Then Lost Them) As the Captain of My Ship

“When you insist on being the captain, you have to go down with the ship.”

Back in the 2000s, I began investing in real estate, flipping houses and making $15,000 or $20,000 a pop. As the years went on, I developed some great systems that helped me climb to making $300,000-$400,000 a year by my late 20s and early 30s. I saw myself as the captain of my own ship who could really make things happen and take on the world.

A lot of young people and new business owners come in with this attitude — that they will make things happen by sheer force of will, no matter what storms may come. However, the reality is that almost everyone eventually takes a punch they can’t handle.

I finally took a punch I couldn’t handle when 2008 came along and I lost about $2.5 million dollars.

Here’s the thing: When you insist on being the captain, you have to go down with the ship.

Photo by Philippe Oursel on Unsplash

Then I Drifted Around Aimlessly Like A Leaf

When I realized life had thrown me a storm so big that I couldn’t navigate successfully through it, I went from “captain of my ship” bulletproof mode to drifting around like a leaf. I went to the opposite extreme, where I couldn’t trust myself or where life was going to take me.

We all know people who are in that place, right? They’re searching for answers. They’ve been punched in the gut, and now they feel paralyzed because they can’t take action.

Don’t Lose Trust In Yourself

There will be moments when, as a business owner, this happens to you. You’ll feel like you’ve been knocked off your high horse, and you’ll suddenly feel helpless and unsure of which direction to take. When that happens, there’s one key: you have to continue to trust yourself.

If you don’t trust you, you can’t make decisions or move forward. You WILL make bad decisions. We all do. Just own them, learn from them, and move forward. Deciding what you will do ahead of time when failure happens will keep you from floating like a leaf in the ocean and feeling like a victim in the world.

Photo by Cole Wyland on Unsplash

I got stuck in that spot for two years, even though I still looked like I was making things happen on the surface. I wanted to pretend and look good, but the truth is that I wasn’t taking action, I couldn’t make decisions, and I was paralyzed. Eventually, I had to forgive myself for the mistakes I’d made so I could move forward.

The only thing I can control in my life is my own life force energy. Where’s your focus? Where are you headed? What are you feeling?

Then I Finally Learned How to Surf

Then I moved into the third stage, which I call the “surfer stage.”

The surfer isn’t trying to beat or control the ocean. He’s not trying to push it around or overpower it. But he’s also not a victim to it. He takes the waves that come and rides them. He maneuvers, he can have fun, and he can do all kinds of things with what the world brings him — but he’s in control of his own destiny, his own ride, and his own fun. This is when life gets really creative and full of joy!

As an entrepreneur, when you get knocked down, it’s like crashing on a surfboard. You get back up, paddle back out, and you catch the next wave.

Now, you have two options on this next wave, and experienced surfers know which one to pick.

As a beginning surfer, you learn that you don’t want to surf straight down the front of the wave. Otherwise, you’ll get ahead of the wave, and it will come down on top of you behind you.

There are times in life — I’ve done this a million times — when we try to force things. We try to make things happen faster than they would naturally happen. Then here comes the wave — KABOOM! — crashing down on our heads.

Photo by Renan Brun on Unsplash

What do experienced surfers do? Rather than tackling the wave head on, they surf sideways along it so they’re able to play and maneuver. They don’t get ahead of it or push too hard. They allow things to unfold because a wave, just like a business, is very dynamic. When you’re surfing, you can’t know what’s going to happen 5, 10, or 20 seconds down the road, just like you don’t know what the economy or the industry is going to do in 5 months or 10 years. As the wave unfolds, you can make good decisions in real time. You don’t have to know what you’ll be doing in 5 years. It’s good to have a plan, but you want to be able to ride the waves that come along.

When You Learn to Surf, You’re Able to Have Fun in Business (and in Life)

Where are you right now? Are you trying to control and bully everything? Know that at some point, you will run into a wall of a wave that’s too big for you. Back off a little bit, and allow things to loosen up a bit so you can get in sync with what’s happening in the economy and the world. Plus, life will be more enjoyable!

If you’re in the victim “leaf” mode and you’re getting tossed all over the place, you have to come back to you. You have to forgive yourself and learn to trust yourself despite the fact that you will make mistakes.

When I went into leaf mode, it took me two years to be able to say, “Okay, I made the best decisions I could at the time. I had the right intentions, and I really was trying to make prudent decisions. I just made some decisions that weren’t the right ones, and that’s okay.”

If you’re a business owner, what steps can you take today to be more of a surfer and ride the waves? Once you make peace with the fact that you’re going to crash sometimes and get swept back to shore, you can decide ahead of time that you’ll paddle right back out into the surf, have more fun, and get in better shape. You’ll learn how to read the situation, the waves, and the dynamics better — which will make your business (and life) much more fun and successful.