I remember writing an article sometime ago. I wrote it, as I recall, for the American Cash Flow Journal.
The article was entitled something like, “If You are Going to Learn How to Ski, You Can’t be Afraid to Fall.” I spent a few minutes trying to find a copy of the article, but wasn’t able to find one. I was planning on attaching it here.
Nonetheless, it went like this.
I was coming back from a ski trip to Park City, Utah. I would never consider myself to be a particularly strong skier, since I really only started doing it when the kids were old enough to go into the bunny school and, since that time, Janet and I have only gone out once a year. We start with a lesson, and then confine ourselves to the green runs. Add to that my on again off again back injuries and you end up with a pretty cautious skier. Nonetheless, it occurred to me, especially on the very long runs, that if I had any intention of learning how to ski, I had to test the limits. I did. And from time to time, I fell. But it was always a cautious challenge and it was always a soft landing.
After the episodes of the past several months, I have been rethinking that basic thesis.
Entrepreneurship is really like learning how to ski. You need to learn how to stand up. Slow down. Turn. Stop. And, above all else, you need to learn how to maintain control while your momentum accelerates. And if you fall, in the process and along the way, it is critical that you learn how to cushion the fall.
When slowly learning how to ski, I was mindful of being prepared to fall in the right way, especially because of my back. Yet in entrepreneurship, it never dawned on me that if I ever fell, I had better be prepared to do it cautiously. After all, I had fallen from time to time, and I simply got back up and kept going. It was a manner of being which has lasted some 25 years of professional pursuits.
However, I must say that since I never developed any real method of falling cautiously, when I fell this time, it wasn’t pretty.
I’m still assessing the entrepreneurial learning that these past months have provided. One thing I’ve learned for sure, however, is that while you can’t be afraid to fall if you want to learn how to ski, you had better learn how to fall as part of the process. Falling is one thing; wiping out is something else all together.
Original Writing Date: 12/02/09