Winston Churchill is reported to have said, Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. I really wish I had better understood this earlier on in my own business journey.
Success is not final. Without doubt success is relative and for some people it can come and go as easily as anything. I have learnt that it is at the point when you adopt the mindset of thinking you have ‘made it’ that is often the time when you start to get complacent and comfortable, resulting in letting your guard down. I won’t lie, that ‘bit me in the proverbial bottom’ at one stage and was the beginning of the end for my first software business.
You know that feeling, don’t you? It’s the time when you win your first industry award, or your first big client, or receive some fabulous press coverage from the national media. Maybe it was when you made your first £million. It feels great, doesn’t it? But, it’s not permanent.
In fact, contrary to common belief, the journey ahead of success is more difficult than that of failure. You want to hold on to your success and this requires huge courage, as well as the willingness to accept and embrace change.
..failure is not fatal… To be truthful, being forced to close-down a business that I simply could not make work, was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Before my current successes with Kafoodle and Auris Tech, I had a software business which grew over 10 years or so from a basic website company, in the early 2000’s, to a software development company building large scale management systems for the construction industry. The problem was that as much as I tried, I couldn’t build a profitable model when billing £’s for hours, especially when I found myself with all of my ‘eggs in the same basket’ – a whole other learning!
Remember, failure is inevitable from time to time; it helps you to learn, so don’t fear failure, instead, fear the inaction that accompanies the fear of failure.
…it is the courage to continue that counts. This has never been truer as it is right now ‘almost’ post covid as we watch in dismay as so many good businesses are forced to reduce in size, or worse still, close their doors altogether through absolutely no fault of their own. That feeling of being powerless to do anything about it is utterly crushing and it takes a great deal of courage to carry on and fight another day.
Having been through the changes that the pandemic has forced upon so many is not so dissimilar to leading a country during wartime. There is an enemy, in this case the World closing all around us, there is your team to protect and support (your army!) and, the responsibility that you feel as a leader to win the battle and live to fight another day which is often quite compelling.
But it is not always the right thing to do. Sometimes it takes more courage to take the defeat on the chin and look for new ways to reinvent yourself. For many, finding the moral strength to deal with this is harder than finding the resources to plug a hole and save a sinking ship!
The reality is, that things are never quite as bad as you think they are and saving something that is too far lost, is not always the right answer.
Having been forced to reinvent myself at 50 was certainly a big challenge and took a great deal of courage, blind faith and belief in myself. But now, as I look back, I see that if I hadn’t had the courage to let go, I would not have had the strength and motivation to create Kafoodle and Auris Tech and, it is these businesses that define me and genuinely make a difference to the incredible teams that support them, together with the people they serve.
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