“If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”
Mario Andretti
If you are a startup founder or work at a startup or pretending to work in one you’ll need to be resilient. But what that actually means and why it’s so important?
I believe that what separates successful companies/entrepreneurs from mediocre ones is their capacity to surpass tough moments. If you analyze the history of successful entrepreneurs none of them has had a straight path to success. Actually, most of them have been very close of going bankrupt.
If we google for resilience’s definition we will find things as “resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness”. As you may notice that’s what entrepreneurs do every single day. Every month/quarter you’ll have a different obstacle to fight against it.
Is resilience something that you are born with or something you can develop?
In my experience as an entrepreneur, I feel that after each battle I come out stronger. So I’m very confident to say that’s something that you develop with experience and time. As a result of that, I’ll detail below the 4 main things that I learned on how to develop & train your resilience:
1) Focus on the problem and on what you can do about it.
Many people at the edge of a problem or actually a big set of problems end up freaking out. It’s important that you try to keep control of yourself and focus on the things that you can actually do to make things better. So, the first thing to do is break down the different problems in smaller ones. Then, for each of them think about the things that are under your control and the things that actually are not and that there is nothing you can do about it. Then set an action plan for the things that are under your control.
2) At first be open to as many ideas as possible
Is very important that when you begin this process you are open-minded and try to search as many solutions as you can. In order to find a good solution you need to be creative and creativity comes from gathering a big chunk of ideas and then iterate on them until they become better.
3) Define clear steps and be laser-focused on getting them solved.
Decide what will you do based on impact and time investment and put those tasks on your calendar. It’s important you now become extremely focused on getting those things done. Don’t get distracted by other problems or issues (unless they really are more important than the ones you are currently solving).
4) Be decisive
If you have many issues on your plate that may be a signal that you may be dragging too much to take decisions. The more things you have on your plate the more anxious & unfocussed you’ll probably be. You should try not to overthink things that are reversible or that have not a big impact. Also, define a list of things you need to achieve to make a decision instead of always trying to reach the best solution for every problem as that may to costly time-wise.
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