By Abilash Jaikumar
It has been nearly 20 years since I co-founded my company, and in that time, I have often been asked what the most challenging aspect was in building a business. By “challenging,” what people want to know is what gave me the most mental anguish, sleepless nights, or made me second guess myself. We all face these moments, whether in business or in the ordinary course of life. What people really have an interest in understanding is how one perseveres in such times and comes out on the other side stronger. There are many obstacles on the path to success, but the most difficult ones are mental.
Most people imagine that starting and growing a successful venture must be accompanied by distress. The reality is anticipated growth of any kind can be a cause of distress. By “anticipated,” I mean that at the outset of the endeavour, you know you must be more than you are. Growth (business or personal) can certainly happen accidentally and incidentally with the passage of time, but starting a business makes the requirement for growth explicit.
In many organisations, individuals may retain their jobs and grow at inflation over the course of decades. But with a ‘move-up or move-out’ culture, the requirement for growth is made explicit for everyone. On the surface, it would seem that the opportunity for growth is an exciting one. Eustress is the tingly excitement we feel when we are up for a new challenge. We do not know for certain if we will succeed, but we believe we can and think we have a plan which will work. When we do succeed, we are proud of our accomplishments because we know there was a risk of failure we overcame.
Eustress, however, can quickly devolve into distress. Distress is the anxiety-inducing discomfort we feel when we are overwhelmed with uncertainty. This uncertainty comes from one of two sources: (a) uncertainty of the objective or (b) uncertainty of the strategy to achieve the objective. When we get into our car, we would never start driving without knowing where we are going. Nor would we start driving without knowing the directions. In business, however, individuals often think if they know their objective, then they can work hard and figure it out as they go along. This approach might eventually get us to where we are going, but until we reach the destination, we have no idea what level of progress we are making. When we finally reach our destination, rather than a feeling of pride and accomplishment, we feel relief the journey is over. There is no accompanying appreciation for the earned success.
A poor yet common approach to mitigate the uncertainty of strategy is to only think for the near term. Small goals are more tangible. Creating strategies to achieve small goals is easier. However, with small goals, we frequently have to create new goals, which reintroduce uncertainty of the objective.
A long-term goal can act as a compass that guides the choices we need to make along the way. Having a long-term goal also allows us to reframe short-term failures. The score at half-time doesn’t determine the winner. The further into the future we set our goal, the more time we have to achieve it. Failure, in and of itself, is not a source of distress. Every choice comes with risk. We make our choices in life not to avoid all risk, but to take risks commensurate with the expected return. But when we fail in the context of a plan, we can use that as a learning opportunity to recast our strategy and continue working towards the goal.
When I have moments of distress along the journey, I pay attention to it. Distress can be useful if we appreciate it as a signal of uncertainty. If we pay heed to it, we can ask ourselves what it is we are uncertain about and get the proper directions before we start aimlessly driving.
The author is the co-founder and managing director, TresVista.