Embracing Adversity

Sounds like an oxymoron.  Probably is, but I’d argue that viewing adversity with the right perspective pays real dividends.  2009 was a tough year period.  The majority of the companies that I’ve invested in or have a relationship with have struggled in 2009 with the exception of the Cheezburger network.  Whether it was sales, raising capital, doing deals, HR issues, break-ins, litigation, it just seemed to be extraordinarily difficult in 2009 to meet/exceed goals and grow.  To their credit though, none have given up - maybe because I won’t let them.  In my day job, even though we grew signficantly in traffic and revenues, we didn’t meet our internal agressive goals.  In the spirit of being reflective, here are some of my thoughts on how to or why you and I should embrace adversity.   

1.  It forces you to prioritize what is most important.   If your revenues are down and you are not selling, why?  You should be picking up the phone and meeting with customers yesterday.  Stop focusing on website redesign or business card branding or what health care plan you should pick - plug the revenue hole or expense hole, and do it right away.  Adversity has a strange way of making it absolutely clear what you should prioritize - embrace it and do it. 

2.  Get back to the basics.  There is nothing wrong with going back to a successful plan and pushing the accelerator pedal on it - which means putting to death your latest and greatest ideas.  Imagine that you are the coach of a college basketball team and you have an 8-footer on your team, an absolute giant.  As a coach that is focused on winning, wouldn’t you keep going to the 8-footer everytime you had the ball?  You would keep doing it until a team proved that they could stop your guy from scoring, right?  I can’t tell you how many entrepeneurs (myself included) that I’ve met keep pursuing the shiny new idea when they are already sitting on success, they’ve proved the model and it’s time to scale!!  If you’ve had a successful model and got distracted with a shiny new idea, kill it and go back to the basics.

3) Forces you to have clarity on motivation and character.  Adversity is the badge of the entrepreneur, I’ve said it many times, it’s never easy being an entrepreneur, it’s hard and brutal and always takes longer than you want.  If your motivation was money and not passion/vision - lack of money will cause you to quit.  If you are an entrepreneur that enjoys the journey and not just the end outcome, these adverse events become badges of honor as it brings you closer to success.  You see things clearer in adversity and you appreciate the taste of success all that much more.  Don’t you think the taste of success is so much sweeter when you had to face adversity?  Use adversity to gain clarity on why you do what you do - get clearer on your vision - see that your character especially perserverance and faith grows each day. 

4) Determine who your friends are.  It’s in adversity that you learn who your real friends are and who you want to partner with in the future.  When things are good, everyone wants to do business with you, everyone is your friend.  Then when s*** hits the fan, who is working with you to help you succeed, who’s still in your corner when the accolades are few and far between?  It’s fascinating to me how short-sighted certain people are - they jump from ship to ship, your next business should be built from relationships that you know will stick with you thick and thin.  Banks, Angels, VC’s, Attorneys, business partners, employees, investors, customers, vendors.  Reward those that took risks with you and partnered with you when things were tough.  Remember them in your next deal.  Of course, it goes without saying, don’t hold a grudge against those who didn’t stick with you, but you might reconsider the relationship next time.  I still remember customers that bought from us even though our financials weren’t in great shape - guess who is going to get preferential service/pricing next time?

5)  Confidence.  Not arrogance, not ego, not unbridled optimism.  Just confidence.  Embracing adversity I’d argue gives you the ability to approach the unknown with no fear.    This might be a hard concept to get.  If you see adversity as an opportunity to get better, learn, grow, and ultimately get closer to success - you approach your job with absolute confidence.  This confidence exudes through the organization and people feed on it.  If you’re down and there’s negative energy around a missed quarter, it could easily go into a death spiral as other people feed on your negative energy, lose hope, and quit on you.  Embracing adversity should give you genuine confidence that is real - you know without a shadow of a doubt that these adverse times will make you a better person and a better leader. 

To sum it up, being an entrepreneur is not easy, adversity sucks, but embracing adversity instead of allowing it to break us will make us successful people.  How are you embracing adversity? Let me know below. Now onto 2010 and your success!