During my early thirties, I bought my first business which I financed with a personal bank loan and a partnership with my family. Within two weeks of buying the company I knew I made a horrible mistake. I spent the next two years digging myself out of a very challenging situation.
During this time I felt like a complete failure. I found myself in a very deep and dark whole. There was one weekend when my family and I were heading out of town for our first weekend away since buying the business. We were driving west on HWY 401 when I noticed a big red truck going the opposite direction. The truck was from a supplier of mine who I owed $11,000 and I didn’t know how I was going to pay them.
The next morning I woke up early and headed to the library down the street from where we were staying. I opened my laptop and started working on a cash flow plan. I promised my wife I’d be home for lunch. After 4 hours of work, I hadn’t solved a single thing. I was stuck and I had no clue what I was going to do.
Slowly, I walked back to the house with my head low and feeling the wait of the world on my shoulders. The thoughts running through my head were of complete despair. About 15 years later as I write this, I am brought to tears as I relive that moment.
Around that time I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated, impatient, and extraordinarily angry. I started destroying every relationship with the people in my life who I love the most. This is the worst part of my story. I am not proud of the way I behaved and how I treated the people who are closest to me. I was in pain and didn’t know how to ask for help.
While asking for help was and still is hard for me, I have a strong capacity for confronting the reality of my situation and focusing on the elements within my control. I would not quit. Then one day I was in my office - likely working on a cash flow plan - when I opened LinkedIn and clicked on the profile of someone I had met by chance years before. His name is John. Curiously, I scrolled down to look at his work history. I couldn’t believe my eyes. His experience was completely different to what I had remembered. John was formerly the president of a company that was one of the biggest players in my industry.
I reached out to John and booked a meeting with him. We met for coffee in Yorkville (downtown Toronto) and going by memory it was a beautiful, warm, and sunny summer day. We sat outside enjoying our coffee and I bore my soul. I told John everything I was struggling with and asked if he could help me.
John was the perfect person for what I needed and he agreed to work with me. Fast forwarding to the end of this story… John helped me sell the business getting my family’s money back and we secured job offers from the acquiring company for every employee except one (he found work elsewhere before the deal closed).
To this day I can’t believe my amazing luck. I also wish I knew then what I know now. There are countless lessons I learned from the experience I went through with my first business. Here are three:
It is this last lesson that is the most important and likely the entire point of this post. I am amazed at the paradox - it is through failure that I have grown the most - and yet it is so hard for me to talk about my failure with others. I truly believe that we are either winning or we are learning. And yet, talking about my failure - especially while I am going through it - brings up feeling of shame and embarrassment.
I so very much wish that as a society we could learn to celebrate failure - especially while we are going through it. Celebrate what we have learned, how we have applied those lessons, and how we have grown as a result. For it is through this process of falling down and getting back up that we are able to contribute more to the people around us and make this world a better place.
Coming back to the story of the big read truck… it wasn’t long ago that I saw this red truck for a second time while driving with my family to the same vacation spot. This time the truck was in front of me going the same direction. The tears I told you about earlier that I shed while writing this… they are tears of joy. Tears of battles fought and battles won. For I have climbed out of hell and found a peace so profound that sometimes it feels as though I am the luckiest person on earth.
By My Side by Ben Harper is the song my wife and I danced to on our wedding day. I've never forgotten the opening lines, “don’t you get ahead of me and I won’t you leave you behind. If you get unhappy, won’t you show me a sign.” The rest of the lyrics are profound too...
As an aside, this song is a great way to help us remember that the people who love us are always on our side - whether it seems that way or not.
If I am your who, then please send me a sign. I am on your side.
About EOS
EOS is a simple, complete and proven system for running a truly great organization. As an EOS Implementer, I help my clients create organizational alignment, execute with accountability and discipline, and work together as a healthy team.