Entrepreneur: Win Some, Lose Some…
by Miki SaxonWin some, lost some is the mantra of business from the largest global enterprise to the newest startup to the micro entrepreneur.
That’s true whether ‘win some’ means a quarter filled with Wall Street plaudits and ‘lose some’ means your stock crashed or ‘win some’ is being able to afford a restaurant dinner after the bills are paid and ‘lose some’ sends you scraping to pay the mortgage.
Winning is easier, often driven as much if not more by the economy than by management skill.
While losing is also affected by the economy, there are enough wins that losing is more about skill—or is it?
Maurice Ewing talks offers up some useful tips on losing your first million. Written for entrepreneurs, it’s applicable to anyone, personally or professionally.
Here are the tips, for details read his HBR post.
- Making losses is part of making money.
- Just lose money — not perspective.
- Never love the business — love doing business.
- Losses do not make you a loser but how you handle them might.
- Stuff happens.
- Loss does bring some advantages.
Perhaps losing is more about MAP.
Perhaps it’s more about what you make out of what happened.
Perhaps it’s not just/all about you.
Yet all Ewing’s tips, along with my ruminations, apply just as well to winning.
Think of it as two sides of the same coin or the inseparableness of Yin and Yang.
Win some, lose some…
As with many things, your choice lies not in winning or losing, but in how you choose to respond to whichever is currently happening.
Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/j_obsworth/4984121965/