John Maxwell, the leadership guru and author writes about ‘attitude tenacity’ that successful people have that allows them to get through adversity. Attitude tenacity only shows up during the difficult times. When things are going great, it’s easy to have a good attitude. But it’s when adversity and challenge come, that’s when your attitude becomes the difference maker.
Here’s why this is so important. You are going to have so, so many times that you will be tested, challenged, and faced with adversity. Things not working out. Things going badly wrong. Bad luck. And on an on.
On my desk I have a coaster that says, “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” Maxwell teaches the same concept.
“One of the things I teach people all the time is that everything worthwhile is uphill. It just is. And I think the greatest way to build tenacity in a person’s life is to let them know in the beginning that it’s not easy. It all begins with a mindset of life is difficult. Everything worthwhile is uphill.”
As an ambitious practice owner, trying to make the best of yourself and your practice, it’s important to understand there will be lots of failure (because life is hard) and that’s ok because there is tremendous value in your mistakes and short-comings and humaneness.
Failure is not the opposite of success. They actually go together. Inside of every success you will find multiple failures that made the success possible.
I’ve never met anybody who said, “I built the company and honest to God, it was easier than I thought, and we built it quicker than I thought, and we’ve made more money than I thought, and I worked fewer hours than I thought I’d need to.” I don’t think that person exists, or if they do, they’re on drugs. The truthful story, certainly in the early years when you are building something and doing the early turns of the flywheel, is always; “It was harder than I thought. It took longer. We made less money. I had to work longer and harder. Lots of what we tried failed the first time, second time and it still failed the fifth time.”
Success comes with failure inbuilt. I used to be too optimistic. I still am in many ways. My wife Catherine teases me for my initial enthusiasm for everything I try. Like we visit the Tate gallery in London, and I buy a bunch of sketchbooks and pencils because I like the idea of getting into sketching. I know it’s likely I won’t be doing much sketching but there is a chance. And I’m optimistic. It’s the same in business, I go into everything very optimistic of eventual success, but I also know going in that I expect this thing to fail in the short term; to be harder than I think, to produce a tenth of the results I hope for, to take three times longer than I expect.
The secret is to keep going. Every failure is a success in progress. You will get enough wins. Small wins will turn into big wins over time.
Everything worthwhile is uphill. Bring it on.