He emailed me the following: “I've never experienced such anxiety as these recent days. I've never known uncertainty to be such a powerful influence. I sometimes just wish someone would tell me every step to make so that I wouldn't fail or fall. Ever.”
I felt two ways about his email…
1. Sheer empathy. I know those exact feelings. I know what it feels like to be alone, worried about mistakes lurking at every corner. I, too, wished for someone to walk me through life’s biggest decisions.
2. Utter fearlessness. I wanted to crawl through the internet, grab his shoulders, and shake him. With force. I needed to tell him that no one could prevent his failures. Ever.
What we want is someone to tell us what steps to take, but running a business isn’t a tango or foxtrot. It isn’t learned synchrony.
Most days running a business is like dancing to music only you can hear, hoping no one notices you, alone, in the middle of the dance floor. Pointing air guns.
And here’s the thing to remember: we learn more from failure than perfection.
Yes, having a mentor/coach/fairy godmother would be nice, but the minute you embrace Risk and Failure as life’s gurus, the sooner you’ll learn to trust what steps to take next.
Dance on, friend, dance on.
