I hope that you’ll enjoy this excerpt from my book, “Launch Your Inner Entrepreneur.”
“As a female entrepreneur or leader, you’ll need to cultivate a mindset of resilience to help you bounce back from the inevitable obstacles associated with launching and running a startup (or leading a business). Some days, you are going to feel like you’re being bounced around on the heavy-duty setting in your washing machine, so you’ll need the strength to climb into the dryer and get those wrinkles out! I’ve been there before: losing a large client, hitting a major snag with products, or having to deal with some other type of complicated issue. You’ll face similar situations, too. We’ll discuss how you can develop mental strength, overcome adversity, adapt to change, pivot after failure, deal with setbacks, increase confidence in your power, and learn to reframe difficult situations—nothing is so insurmountable that you can’t handle it.
You are a business owner and leader now: you will not win every fight you’re in, and you’ll lose supporters and backers along the way. If the path to entrepreneurship were an easy one, there would be many more successful entrepreneurs out there. In order to grow and thrive in business, you are going to need to develop the ability to overcome hindrances and keep trudging along as you face failures, setbacks, and disappointments. These pitfalls will be interwoven with opportunities and successes, and you must be resourceful as a leader in order to bounce back, keep moving forward, and be able to grab those lucrative, new opportunities as they arise.
Resilience is something that I have mastered and developed out of necessity. When my two daughters were only two and four years old, my husband passed away unexpectedly in an accident. I was working two jobs at the time and midway through getting my Ph.D. I thought I would never make it through—that I’d never be able to work, take care of my children, and complete my doctorate. But you know what? I did. I raised my two girls on my own, finished that Ph.D., and blossomed both personally and professionally. I also went on to launch a brand and write two books. If I didn’t pull on my resilience during those tough times, that would have never happened.
You can do this, too, because inevitably, we’ll all experience snags as entrepreneurs, and resilience helps us keep progressing and enables us to deal with problems. Resilient women are mentally tough, able to overcome adversity, and know how to cope and adapt without getting stuck. Being quick to recover is vital for when we hit those challenges. We will sometimes lose (deals or support) and must pivot in order to keep moving ahead. Leading a startup (or any company) is about reinvention and growth.
Failure makes us stronger, so it’s essential to own it and take with us the lessons we learned: we’ve got to adjust, adapt, and move our companies along. There are many times when I didn’t get opportunities that I was so sure I would. In those cases, I had no choice but to try something else and find another way. You should, too, and, as part of that, don’t spin your wheels chasing after something that is not meant to be. There is something else better that is just around the corner, and it’s got your name on it in ALL CAPS!
Everyone has resilience but at differing levels. It has to do with how you put it to use and how you deal with problems and setbacks as a rule, but the good news is that your resilience level is not fixed. There are ways that you can increase it.
The first thing you can do is to believe in yourself and have more confidence in your abilities and strengths. We’ve talked about this before: you are amazing, so keep telling yourself that! Heck, shout it from the rooftops if you need to! You can also focus on becoming more positive. When you hit a difficulty, don’t drown in the misery; instead, come up with a plan. How are you going to tackle this roadblock and regroup without giving in to feelings of defeat? Lay out your next steps and then execute them because you are now a master time manipulator and planning diva: you have many talents.”
Want to read more? This excerpt was taken from my book, “Launch Your Inner Entrepreneur.”