Yesterday, I taught my 3 year old daughter how to arm wrestle. We laid down on the carpet, belly down, facing each other. I showed her how to plant her elbow and grip my hand for a serious arm wrestling match. She’s as convinced she’s stronger than me as she is 3 years old. No question. So, I had to ask myself whether I was going to let her win every match. I decided to use this as a teachable moment. She won the first one, I took the second…she started crying. Yea, not exactly what I had in mind. So, I told her I understand how badly she wants to win and I think that’s great. But she’s not going to win every time. So she needs to learn how to handle when she loses. It’s not something to cry about, but it is something to learn from and let motivate her next time. She’s pretty smart, of course, so this all seemed to make perfect sense to her, and she was cool with a 50% winning record for the rest of our matches. I think she realized she enjoyed the competing as much if not more than the winning.
Well, that got me thinking (again) about the decision to put my last startup on the shelf. We built a service for parents serving about a dozen cities nationwide, we grew a great team of local “work-from-home-mom” editors, we developed some really interesting software to manage the whole thing. But at the end of the day, we (I) couldn’t find the funding necessary to let us take it to the next level. So, in my book, we (I) failed.
The last couple months have provided the kind of time to reflect that does not come along all that often. As a result, I’ve learned a lot. In fact, I think I’ve learned more than had I still been focused full time on building it out. There’s more clarity now than before regarding all the things I know I’ll never do again. But there’s also a ton of things I would do again, and am growing eager to get back at it!
Here’s one of my favorite quotes, sent to me by a friend in the early days after deciding to shelve my last company…
It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt