Adventure = risk! That is something many conservative parents explain to their children to make sure they don’t do anything crazy (at least mine did). It seems that many entrepreneurs have a little crazy in them, however. It’s that “itch” that makes them want to continue to push their abilities, not knowing where something may take them. It’s “energy and passion without wisdom.” (Segal, G) This is a phase some entrepreneurs experience.
Of course, I’m telling you some things you may already know; hindsight is always 20/20. After all is said and done, you know what you would do if you had the chance to start over; whether that’s relationships, completing projects, or creating a start-up business. If you fail fast you better learn fast and start over.
I view business a little bit like a game of chess. You play the game, you play hard, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And then you set up the pieces and do it again. You don’t have angst like ‘oh my god I lost that game, what am I going to do, was it me?’ What that allows you to do, is to view a little bit as an outsider from yourself. Things that happen to you, so when something that doesn’t work out that well you can say ‘gee that was horrible, but it was an interesting experience.’ (Bushnell, N, 2017)
This came from Nolan Bushnell who talks about how he sold his company, Atari, after feeling dissatisfied with how the company was being managed following his departure. He’s an entrepreneur who was interviewed by NPR’s “How I Built This” podcast. Nolan created Chuck E. Cheese two years after he created Atari. He was extremely successful in both companies, even employing tech innovator Steve Jobs at one point. Nolan shows his maturity by taking every poor situation and turning it into something positive. This is a significant trait for entrepreneurs: to be resilient in the common shadow of challenges and obstacles that almost everyone in life goes through.
This resonates with me, not only in my professional life, but in my personal life as well. These are the challenges I can relate to with my relationships with colleagues, friends, family, and even my girlfriend. People always think of that phrase that’s at the end of most fairy tales, “and they lived happily ever after.” In reality, that’s almost never the case. Relationships are hard and something you have to continuously work on. If you aren’t resilient then you will find yourself constantly running away from the challenge of a relationship and never committed to a common goal with another person.
People always want to instantly win this game of chess we call life, because of how our culture perpetuates the ‘short-term’ game. What many people don’t realize is that life consists of many games, rather than just one. The goal is to pay attention to what the opponents (circumstances, challenges, obstacles, life) do so you don’t make the same mistakes the next time around.
The last thing I hope everyone takes away from this blog is that you don’t regret anything in life (unless you’ve intentionally hurt or inconvenienced someone else). If you regret anything in your life, it means that you’re unhappy with some aspect of it. I know people who have beautiful, loving, and respectful children and sometimes wish they didn’t have them due to the sacrifices they made that impacted their individual careers and dreams. There are others, though, that have created a balance between family life and career with many sacrifices and are content with both. They realized that the only way to overcome their challenges was through positivity.
If there is a career or a dream that you love enough, I hope you read my first blog of Love What You Do or Do What You Love. Think of all the opportunities you have to accomplish your goals as well as the obstacles that could stop you from accomplishing them. If a solution to your obstacles does not exist within the market, create one. I hope you come up with a great idea that exploits the traditional industries and turns them into innovative products or services.
Bushnell, N. (2017, February 26). NPR's How I Built This: Atari & Chuck E. Cheese's: Nolan Bushnell [Audio blog interview by G. Raz]. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this/id1150510297?mt=2&i=1000381929430
Segal, G. (2017, February 19). [Audio blog interview by G. Raz]. Retrieved March 9, 2017, from https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this/id1150510297?mt=2&i=1000381423858