Handling Adversity & Setbacks

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Handling Adversity & Setbacks

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CraigL

posts: 9051

Sep 15, 2006 8:27 PM ET Quote Report Abuse

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I believe that the universe is organized. I also believe that organization is an either-or condition. In other words, organization itself either exists or does not exist, entirely. So for example, Existentialism proposes that nothing has any intrinsic meaning, but that we each assign meaning to whatever it is we encounter. That`s contradictory, as in order to encounter anything we`d have to comprehend an encounter.

Anyway...most small business owners are facing one of the highest stress and anxiety situations possible. The risk is total, with only faith in an idea as the future reward. Statistics show the number of people who fail; yet in the face of that failure, individuals persist. How?

I`m interested in how others handle the seemingly never-ending collapses in plans, letdowns, broken promises, rejections, disappointments, and so forth naturally associated with a startup.

For me, a couple of things have stood the test of time and experience. One thing I`ve learned is that WHATEVER happens, the first and foremost thing to understand is that your own choice of perspective will totally determine your next step. As people say, you can`t do much about what happens to you, but you sure as heck can affect how you`ll deal with those events!

"The universe isn`t broken!" That`s a good one. Is what`s happening a problem? Or is it that you don`t have enough knowledge of the future to see that it`s a good thing? Even if it`s a massive problem, does that mean the entire universe has collapsed overnight, and YOU are the person to fix it?

"What can I do in the next 20 minutes to solve this?" If you think about any major problem, say payroll is due tomorrow and you don`t have any money in the bank. Is there anything you can do in the next 20 minutes that will solve the problem? If not, it`s only your own choice to keep worrying about it. Instead, look at what you can actually do about anything at all in those next twenty minutes.

"This seems like a good idea--a fun thing to do right now." Okay, this is harder to explain, but what it means is that you can bang yourself over and over against a process that fails repeatedly, or you can let it go for the moment, and look for opportunities. Here`s a story, by way of analogy.

I like to fish, and believed for years that the only fish worthy of dinner were bass (in our area). I`d repeatedly be disappointed when I didn`t catch any, and would have to stop at the supermarket for dinner. Year after year, I`d always see countless "sunnies" swirling around the shores, following my lures, stealing my bait, and generally being a nuisance.

One day, I heard about a video that teaches an excellent way to fillet fish. I needed something to practice on, so went out and scooped up some of these small sunnies. The technique is so good I was able to remove the bones from even such little guys. With that much fish, I figured I`d just cook it up. And by gosh if it wasn`t at least as good as bass, maybe even better!

The moral is that I allowed myself to be continually disappointed, over and over, for years, because I was sure I knew the ONLY way to catch fish for dinner! There were literally thousands of opportunities for me to have a wonderful fish dinner, whether or not I caught those bass I assumed to be the only solution to my problem. Yet instead of enjoying the fun of catching them, I focused on the depression of not getting bass.

It`s all about perspective, rose-colored glasses, and so forth. People ask me do I see the glass half full or half empty. Me? I see a glass someone`s left on the table that I can pawn, sell on eBay, or that`s making a water ring. :-) Either way, it makes a good ashtray!

jillybeans

posts: 361

Sep 19, 2006 5:03 AM ET Quote Report Abuse

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The things about which you inquire are not just associated with startups, they are also associated with life in general.

For me, it depends on the importance of the outcome. What was the breach? Was it a deal breaker? When I had my house built and was experiencing all the trials and tribulations, it was thoroughly stressful but has been let go. I "fixed" the stresses the best I could and got over it. When my job was eliminated, I found another and got over it. When my daughter I was supposed to adopt was instead, after 2+ years, reunited with a birth parent by court order, I was devastated and to date, remain heartbroken, but I`ve still gotten on with life.

You cope. You figure out a better way to solve the situation if it occurs again, file the new solution in the back of your mind, and move on to the next situation. Learn from it. That`s life. And I do believe Universe (God) has a plan and we are here to figure it out!

Jillybeans

CraigL

posts: 9051

Sep 19, 2006 4:11 PM ET Quote Report Abuse

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The things about which you inquire are not just associated with startups, they are also associated with life in general.

Yup...that`s why this posted to the "Life planning" forum. The Sloan brothers highlight the issue in their book, pointing out that starting and running a business is all well and good, but it`s still secondary to running your life. You don`t live for your business, you live for the joy of life. Running a business is a creative venture designed, hopefully, to make that life more satisfying.

My interest is as a philosopher, with quality of life being a high value. As I meet people in life, read forums, get into discussions, I find that adversity and setbacks tend to detract from what people consider to be their quality of life. And so we ought to have a way to handle these so-called problems.

Too many people slough off the entire issue with such platitudes as, "deal with it," or "I cope," or "don`t think about it," or "let it go." That`s all well and good but how, exactly? You`ve said that one particular issue was so powerful you`re still experiencing the consequences. In another issue, you tried to fix the problems yourself. Many people try that, and I`m curious as to how well it works? I know I tried that most of my life and it didn`t seem to do much at all.

I`ve found the above "mantras," for want of a better word, to be very useful in dire situations where everything hangs on the next turn of the wheel. I`m also interested in global solutions rather than specific solutions to short-term problems. As such, the "20-minute rule" would be to constrain your own perspective of what you can do, what you control, and your intended action to only the next twenty minutes.

That introduces the problem of how does planning and trend analysis reconcile with focusing on only the next twenty minutes. But that`s a different discussion. What specifically do you do on a general level, to handle the entire concept of adverse conditions, frustrated plans, setbacks, and disappointments?

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