The Week Ahead: An Entrepreneur’s Thought

“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish”.

For any of you who grew up playing sports as I did this phrase was recited over and over again and became stuck in your head like one of those annoying Nicki Minaj songs you just can’t stop singing randomly throughout the day.

Well, for me I can gladly say I am happy this saying stuck with me. The phrase “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish” is something I tell myself every day which has become a soothing mantra whenever I feel the inevitable anxiety of being an entrepreneur….It also helps me when I’m on the golf course and I shank one into the water off the first tee box.

In my opinion, it’s a saying that every entrepreneur should at the very least remember. For me, I have found that the phrase provides a sense of hope and pushes me to believe in myself.

Is the saying cliche?

Sure.

However, it’s a little less cheesy than picturing Rocky Balboa screaming in my ear “It ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward” with that terrible [East Coast??] accent while Eye of the Tiger plays in the background.

The point of it all is that no entrepreneur can predict the future. But as an entrepreneur, one of the greatest perks is that you have the privilege to do everything in your power to best control the outcome.

It doesn’t matter if you have bootstrapped your business, were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have raised capital to give it a jumpstart, or took over a family business. What matters is what comes next.

If you bootstrapped your company, cool. That story is only cute for so long. What do your sales look like? How are you going to grow? If you are growing how are you planning on sustaining that growth?

Raised Capital? Sweet. How are your going to bring a 10x return on that investment? Who are you going to hire next to ensure quality control over your company as you focus on raising your next round?

Mom & Dad just retired and handed over the keys to the family business? Congrats. How are you going to earn the trust of the employees who have worked for your parents for 20+ years? How are you going to make sure that what your folks built keeps up with the modern times?

I don’t ask these questions under the impression that I know the answers. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. I don’t know the answers and it’s ok not to. All that matters is how you react and what you do next.

To paraphrase the Founder of Linkedin Reid Hoffman: what is an entrepreneur? Someone who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down.

As an entrepreneur all you know is that you have a few skills, a passion you can’t stop thinking about, and that you THINK you have the stomach enough to pursue that passion and turn it into a [successful] business.

You hear all the time about how hard the journey is going to be on the path to greatness, how many sacrifices you are going to have to make, and how much you are going to have to hustle. But you really don’t know until you actually jump off that cliff. Until you actually get that call from the bank saying your account has been overdrawn until you have to take that second job to make sure you have enough money to pay your employees, or until your idea that you spent 6 months building gets rejected and you have to start over.

Again I say all of this to remind you that it doesn’t matter. I will also let you in on a little secret. No one cares. No one cares because of either…

A.) They have gone through the same exact thing and aren’t here for your sob story.

Or

B.) They haven’t gone through it and they have no idea what it’s like or why you would put yourself through such struggle.

Like I said it doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do next. What matters is not making the same mistake twice. What matters is listening to your mentors, trusting your team, and most importantly…having the discipline to remain humble.

I was very blessed to have two great mentors in my life that I met at a late stage in life (by late I mean like 18 but its cool because I’m like 50 in entrepreneur years). One an accomplished entrepreneur and the other a successful executive in the corporate world. The two traits they share their ability to remain humble and their relentless effort to pay it forward.

Those two traits are ones that I try and practice every day. Is it hard? Absolutely. However, those are the two traits that I know without a doubt I can control. Remaining humble and seeking to pay it forward not just when it is convenient but truly seeking to pay it forward when given the opportunity have given me both the optimism and discipline to keep striving to be better. Not just for myself but for others as well.

I told my team that I was going to submit at least one post every Monday for our blog. I’m not going to lie I was nervous when I made this promise. I don’t have any followers, I am not a writer, and I am pretty sure I am an undiagnosed dyslexic. However, as I have stated throughout this post. It doesn’t matter how I start, what matters is how I finish.

-KC