How I Deal with Uncertainty
For the first 2 years of my business I had a partner. At the end of 2014, he left and I had a very difficult decision to make: should I keep the business or move on to something else? I was so used to running the business with someone else that I honestly wasn’t sure if I could do it on my own.
For those of you that know me, you know that I can pretty much power through anything with hard work and grit. I’m absolutely convinced that if you don’t stop, you can’t fail. However, this was the first time in my life when my confidence in that belief was really questioned.
I wasn’t sure if I could do it on my own. And I was scared that if I tried and failed, that meant I wasn’t good enough and I couldn’t lead and run a business.
It was a very trying and emotional time for me.
Among all the uncertainty, I just kept running the business. And while I was “still deciding” whether to keep it or not, 4 months ended up going by. And then I was like, wait a second, it’s been 4 months and the business is still in tact. In fact, we just had our best quarter ever and I’m running the show by myself.
In the wake of uncertainty I just kept pushing. Meanwhile, none of my employees had any idea what was really going on behind the scenes. They knew my partner had left but they had no idea the emotional or mental challenges I going through.
I’m very proud that I was able to take care of everyone on my team through this time. I was not only fighting for myself but to also make sure everyone on my team still had a job. If I failed, they would all lose their jobs. I’m not the type of person who quits and this was another point in my journey that reaffirmed to me why it pays to not quit.
In short, here’s what I learned:
If I’m ever uncertain of something, keep going forward. Until I know for sure that I should stop and do something else or move in another direction, uncertainty means to keep going.
At least that’s my take on it.
Thank you to my mentor Elizabeth Pitt for helping me articulate this. I never understood why I really kept pushing through, but she summed it up very nicely to me and now it’s a concise lesson I can share.
Things like this are what I’ll be sharing over the coming months. Except when they happen you’ll actually get to see the firsthand account in real-time. Things I was always afraid to show anyone. I used to hide these things from people. But no longer. This is who I am, and I’m proud of it. Each time I share more, I feel more free. I’m no longer hiding anything, but being my true self all the time. At least that is my goal and what I am striving towards.
I hope to see you all along this journey as I document growing my company Jakt in 2017. I’ll be documenting everything here: AnthonyTumbiolo.
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Anthony is the founder of Jakt, a product studio that focuses on optimizing KPIs throughout the entire user journey. We do this through a combination of design, development, strategy and growth marketing. In 2017 I’ll be documenting the entire journey of growing the company. You can follow along here: AnthonyTumbiolo.com
