Facing Failure
It’s going to happen. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. A few years back I was one step away from opening my own gym. Hours poured into a business plan, multiple meetings with two potential business partners, marketing concepts, walk throughs of spaces, investors willing to write the check - it was all there. Then at the last minute, a potential business partner got scared and backed out, essentially flushing the whole idea down the toilet.
I was devastated. Owning a gym had been a dream of mine for more than half my life. It was something I’d chased and dreamed about each and every time I stepped into any gym for myself or for work. The blessed thing was I knew to pull the plug.
That’s the reframing lesson #1: keeping your wits about you when you’re punched in the face by reality. I reframed this failure as a lesson.
My instinct, of course like most entrepreneurs, was to double down my efforts. I could do anything and if I needed to pick up the slack of someone else who was scared, to hell with it, I could do it. But, I’d be buying a job, not investing into an opportunity. I trusted the numbers more than I did the pig-headed determination and pride I had and I pulled the plug. It was a hard lesson, it left a bad taste in my mouth, but I ate it nonetheless.
Getting so close to what I wanted and not getting it threw everything else into a different light. At the time, I was renting space from the two guys who would eventually become my business partners. I cared for them, I didn’t want to do anything to harm their business, but I didn’t see anything that could happen here. In retrospect, though, I saw another path I could potentially take. It lead to a conversation that I would have been too scared to ask otherwise. I thought if I was one foot out the door, what’s the worst that could happen asking about buying in? Little did I know, I was cracking open a window in case God shut the door on the first opportunity.
The experience, even if it lead to a dead end, had taught me more about running a business than being an independent trainer for the previous 3-4 years had. One of the best lessons I’d learned (outside of business) was that if you wanted to be good at something, then you just had to do that thing. Business is like any craft, really. Do it and you’ll (hopefully) get better. I’d jumped into the deep end, practiced swimming and saw I wasn’t able to get into the big pool and pulled myself out - but I’d swam some, even briefly.
While I was chewing on my failure, it hurt and I hated it. In reflection, it showed me that even though I failed, I didn’t fall down, I failed to the side and it eventually lead to me moving upward. Keeping my wits during failing allowed me to see where I was - renting at a gym with two business owners who were as hungry as me - and let me grab at opportunity there. I then used everything I owned in that time period of planning and building to improve the opportunity I was given. No - I don’t know everything, but I was able to exponentially improve my skillset just by failing.
Facing failure still fucking sucks, there’s no way around it, but every rain cloud has a silver lining, even if it takes time and hindsight to find the lessons.
