If the Shoe Fits: Is It Really Failure?
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.
A post on Medium from Alexis Tryon considers something that many entrepreneurs face, i.e., if your company fails are you a failure, too? She puts it like this.
If Alex = Artsicle
& Artsicle = Failure
then Alex = Failure
I saw this happen decades ago during every downturn and each resulting layoff. It happened to many people at Enron and other corporate debacles.
Not just to founders/executives/managers, but to workers at all levels.
And I spent enough time coaching, encouraging and working with them that I coined a term for it.
I’ve written about it several times, how to avoid it in 2010, not making your company or position your identity (which is what Alexis did), along with a way to combat it in 2013.
As bad as ego-merge is for “regular” people, it is much worse for entrepreneurs.
That said, they also have a psychological advantage in dealing with it, since if they didn’t have more-than-normal grit to start with they wouldn’t have become entrepreneurs in the first place.
Also, real failure isn’t about getting knocked down.
It’s only real if you don’t get up.
Hat tip to CB Insights for pointing me to Alexis’ post.)
Image credit: HikingArtist
