So you read about some way to develop your business, or you take a class, or just have a great conversation with someone who knows what they’re talking about. Then you do something amazing: you actually try to implement what you’ve learned.
And it plops. Fails. Doesn’t look like it did in the cookbook. The waves of despair start lapping at the shore of misery, and whatever other hyperbolic imagery occurs to you. Darn it! Was the information bad? Were you tricked? Why didn’t it work like you expected it to?
Totally normal expectation, and, I’m sorry to report, it’s not an unusual outcome.
Let Me Tell Your Two Stories of Failure
When it was time to hire someone else to help at Heart of Business, I talked to a friend of mine who had been a CEO that hired lots of people, and got great advice from him. I read some of the top interviewing books. And my wife, Holly, and I went through the steps.
Two bad hires. In a row. Fine people, just really bad fits. And then the third was totally golden: Kate Williams, who, if you haven’t had the pleasure to meet yet, I hope you do someday. She’s amazing at all sorts of stuff, including managing this business for success.
Here’s another one. I had learned about marketing from all kinds of experts, from various angles. As a result, I had great content, a good sales page, testimonials and success cases, a decent list of email subscribers, and a history of selling out other courses.
But my own marketing course? I couldn’t fill it. Painful, especially when someone emailed me, “I’m not going to take a marketing course from someone who can’t even fill it.” Until, on the advice of a great friend of mine, Jason Stein of Freetobeparents.com, I tweaked the title of the course. It sold out.
Humbling. And that’s just two stories out of many. And they keep happening all the time to me.
The Spiritual Lesson About Success and Failure
You’re not going to like this. Well, I didn’t like it, and so I’m guessing you aren’t going to like it, either.
Life, and business, is not about success. And no, it’s not about “learning some lesson,” either, although that’s what happens from time to time.
Ancient spiritual teachings tell us that the aim of life is to find love everywhere. To be overly attached to success and to abhor struggle, failure, or other hardships is a subtle turning away from love.
Here’s a question I love asking my heart when I’m struggling: “Is love available even here?”
The Implications for Your Business
Business and life have risks associated with them. Marketing, hiring, and other business development thingamadoodles you may take on are not paint-by-number projects. Sometimes they work out wonderfully. Sometimes there’s challenge and struggle involved.
What’s certain is that you can make decisions easier and temper the risks by learning from trusted sources, whether it’s friends, teachers, books, or other places. Not learning from others is a sure recipe for drawn out struggle. Kinda like trying to learn the tuba by yourself while wearing earplugs.
You might eventually do okay with it, but why put yourself through that?
However, it’s also important to understand that the learning process doesn’t preclude struggle. Wisdom is gained through experience, and experience is gained through, well, doing it and seeing what happens and then learning from what you see.
All of this is perhaps somewhat obvious, but I’ve seen many people, including myself, put a tremendous amount of hope and expectation on having other people “save” them. My message to you is, if possible, to let go of the idea that someone else’s wisdom is going to save you from struggle.
When you do struggle, ask yourself the question, “Is love available even here?” That can reduce the fear of trying new things, when your heart can receive the knowledge that you are cared for even in, perhaps especially in, times of struggle.
And then keep doing it. That third hire, that umpteenth tweak of a course title, that next iteration is the charm. Your business can succeed, if only you’re willing to let go of attachment to success, and find love even in the struggle.
