Falling. A fantastic euphemism for not ‘measuring up.’ Or a verbal shroud to obscure the root: Failure. If I had the proverbial nickel every time I have failed in the first 50 I may not be rich, but I would have a decent chunk of change. The big question is: When I have Fallen, have I gotten back up in an appropriate fashion?
Is there really an appropriate fashion? Who’s standard measures an individual’s successes or failures? Certainly, society has a way of weighing in on the matter, yet I am in favor of fighting against that version. As I reach the end of this first 50, I would like to posit the only scale or standard that truly matters is yours.
Is that a safe way of looking at it? Or is that a clever way of accepting a Fall you have not been able to recover from completely? I have wondered to myself many times about that very idea. At this juncture, I am staying with the idea that we really are just competing against ourselves in the end, therefore, the determination of our successful return from a Fall lies within each one of us.
It is hard to believe it has been a decade since I took the biggest risk of my life. I pursued a dream of running a company, albeit in the realm of small business, it was still a company with people, products, and a place. Like many entrepreneurs with a similar dream, I went into the venture with a plan, advisors, a great business partner, and all the tenacity I had always given to anything I had previously pursued. The result? I Fell. Hard. Far. Fast.
I was stunned by the affect all the minutiae had on me when it did not used to phase my actions in the least. Yet it turned into monumental challenges as the business plan that I had carefully laid out was not working. It was not just the fact that the profits were not there at the end of each month that plagued me, it was the enormous impact it had on my family that made this particular Fall different than any others.
To make the plan successful, my resources at my disposal in the form of energy, capital, and most importantly, my time was redirected to the business and away from my family. It became painfully clear that those familial reasons I wanted to build something great and financially rewarding for were the ones paying the stiffest price. No longer was I around for all the important occasions at school. There was precious little money left to just go out to dinner if we wanted to on a Friday night. Opportunities were scarce to ‘just get away’ even for a short hike or family bike ride and hamburgers afterwards.
It was a great lesson in unintended consequences that played out so many times at dinnertime when I was physically present with the family but mentally, I was consumed with solving the latest business challenge. My sons would ask for my opinion on the dinner conversation topic and I could not answ
er, because I was not listening, I was Falling. All the planning and pivoting action could not divert the business from changing course in a direction that would result in a business fairy-tale ending we sometimes read about on LinkedIn.
It was a conversation with my business partner as I stood looking into the dark night out of a hotel window in the dead of winter. I was in a place far away from home on a business trip I was not really interested in, that
it became abundantly clear this was going to be a spectacular Fall. The emotional undulations I was experiencing could have made this Fall particularly more painful, but it was the steady-handed business partner who kept it all from truly imploding. Perhaps it was divine providence that I chose to work with this business partner, a friend if you will, who could process the situation in a way I was unable to.
We found a way out of the business situation, and it reminded me of the old saying: ‘There is always a way.” We may not like that way, but it is there if we take it and figure out a way to get back up. As I see it, when faced with a Fall we have 3 choices: to fight it, to quit altogether, or to accept the Fall and find a way to get back up. So, after Falling, did I get back up?
The answer is, ‘Yes.’ At least I think so. I believe I was able to get back up after such a Hard Fall, but the impact reshaped many things about me. I look at the world differently now. I do not take things so seriously and have found a gratitude in the present that previously did not exist in my little corner of the world. I am still working just as hard but with a different viewpoint on the end goal.
As I head into the final few days of the first 50, the bottom line is simple. I am alive, healthy, employed, have a few nickels saved, and have been on quite a few families bike rides. Sometimes after those rides, we even go out for hamburgers and have riveting conversations about all manner of things. Because we can.
Perhaps it is not the Fall that will get you. It is not getting back up that hurts.
I hope you all get back up as well. When you Do, I will see you on the trail.
- CPH
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