In one of my conversations on The Bond Appetit Show, I was speaking with Chris Wildeboer. Chris is a really cool entrepreneur who helps people to identify blocks in their personal lives and businesses, and then to achieve great flow out of that realisation. We got into loads of fantastic topics in this conversation. One of the ones that stood out best for me was around our experiences, failure and growth in business.
Talking to Chris, I really found myself opening up about my own past – the victories and the losses. And from this, I came to some interesting realisations. Like most entrepreneurs, I’ve experienced some major setbacks. These are not just damaging to your reputation and bank balance, but they can have some serious repercussions on your mental state as well. For me, my failures around business made me feel that I didn’t have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. While I can look back now and say that those experiences were important in setting up my next ventures, I was interested to find out what psychological approach business owners can take when they’re in the midst of these problems.
Of course, as we discussed in the show, there’s no one size fits all solution. And that’s because we’re all different – not just from each other but even from ourselves on a day-to-day basis. We all constantly change based off of our experiences. So it’s difficult to know how we might need to approach issues that come up in the future.
Chris brought up some really cool ideas around recurring patterns, and how they hold people back in their lives. This got me thinking about the role that these patterns can play in holding us back in business. As entrepreneurs, we feel we have to do everything. While this is something ingrained in our DNA and probably impossible to change, it can be incredibly stressful.
So, instead of trying to change the unchangeable, how about thinking of the importance of these testing periods? This doesn’t just apply to business. Whatever space you’re in – business, academia, relationships, etc. – you have to go through difficult times to actually figure out what you want to do and ultimately who you want to become.
The importance of these periods is about growth and learning for the next time, and the way to deal with these bad experiences when you’re in them is to realise that you will come back stronger and wiser as a result.
None of this is to say that those trying times will get easy. They won’t. But you will be better equipped to deal with them the next time you’re faced with obstacles. The important thing to remember is to not let negative experiences become recurring patterns. Instead to treat them as learning curves from which you will emerge better… regardless of what it is you’re trying to achieve.
Author: Ronsley Vaz
Ronsley is the founder & chief day dreamer at AMPLIFY. He is an author, speaker & serial entrepreneur.
He has a Masters’ degree in Software Engineering and an MBA in Psychology and Leadership. He is known as the creator of We Are Podcast – the first Podcasting Conference in the Southern Hemisphere, and the host of The Bond Appetit Podcast and Should I Start a Podcast. He has an audience of over 3 million in 133 countries.