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It’s been said in many ways. Fish or cut bait. Commit or move on. And my all-time favorite, shit or get off the pot. Or as they say in Paris: Poopoo or leave the bidet. All right, nobody says that… but we can coin the phrase anyway?
But when is it time to dig in and time to throw in the towel? (Hey, there’s another way to say it!)
Because if you’re like me, failure is not an option. I have built an entire career around my inability to throw in the towel. I believe the division between the people who reach their dreams and the ones who fall short is literally a function of gut check. Meaning, some of us want it a hell of a lot more than others.
But are there moments when it really is time to “get off the pot?” Times when the juice will never be worth the squeeze. And more importantly, how do you distinguish the difference?
My Struggles.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I had a business that was crushing our spirits. And when I say crushing our spirits, I mean stomach in knots, scared every time the phone rang and fighting over the most ridiculous issues. You know, like empty toilet paper rolls, temperature settings and snoring in bed. Her, not me.
For many reasons – non-committed business partners, unfulfilling marketplace, inferior worker pool, etc. – we devolved into a position of incredible dissatisfaction and fear and diminished quality of life. And because we are both proud and scrappy, we held onto this business despite all the signals the universe was sending.
We did what we had always done: fought like hell because we believed that “cutting bait” went against what we stood for. And in the end, we made the extremely painful, yet intelligent, decision to throw in the towel. This was never going to be a thing that fulfilled our lives or the lives of others.
You either succeed or you learn.
But no mistake is ever truly a failure unless you learn nothing from it. No, I didn’t get that from a fortune cookie… but thanks for asking. Really, unless you’ve had these types of experiences you can’t truly call yourself a seasoned entrepreneur. Until you’ve earned your stripes in business and partnerships, you’re really nothing more than a dude with his head in the clouds.
And here is what we learned the hard way.
- How to identify a good fit when it comes to partnerships
- How to question what should drive a new venture for me
- How to qualify a startup before you jump in
- How to discern when to fish or cut bait
- And the most valuable of all: how to establish boundaries
Every one of these lessons is valuable and takes me closer to my black belt in business jiujitsu but the true ah-ha moment was discovering my need for boundaries. I have always considered myself a strong-willed person, therefore people rarely get to walk all over me, but what I discovered through this entire process was that because of my innate need to please others, I’m a huge bull’s eye for being taken advantage of. Really.
And for the record, that only makes partnerships weak. I was as much to blame for those shitty partners as they were. That’s still hard to say but it’s true… and my beautiful wife was just an innocent casualty of it all.
So how do you ensure you don’t get taken advantage of?
You can start by identifying the thing inside you that drives that behavior. You’re not going to want to hear this, but it typically comes from a hole in your game somewhere in the neighborhood of self-worth. Look, we all have to pay our dues. We all have to eat some shit every once in a while. But if you are consistently feeling like life could be better for everyone involved if your needs were being heard, and you aren’t doing something about it, take a long, hard look at where you place your value.
Setting your boundaries.
Start by defining boundaries. Boundaries are guidelines that you create for yourself. Don’t feel like you have to show up rigidly, with your chest out and a chip on your shoulder telling people, “I wish you would mess with my boundaries.” This isn’t a tool to pick a schoolyard fight.
Setting boundaries for yourself is simply the ruler by which you measure all your efforts. This is also the foundation on which you establish successful relationships. Like those shitty partners.
Tips that helped me.
- Practice self-awareness – as with everything, the first step is to see yourself inside the problem.
- Find your voice – we aren’t all John Wayne so approach all conversations as yourself.
- Make your needs a priority – this is the part that doesn’t come easy for me.
- Talk it through with a friend – getting feedback from someone with no emotional ties helps.
- Start small, it takes practice – Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither was John Wayne.
The point.
Look, here’s my point. Nothing in life is easy. If you want to be successful, you have to do things you don’t like, you have to sacrifice time with your family, you have to dig deep and do gut checks. But sometimes, the universe is telling you that this isn’t right for you. That no matter how stubborn you are or talented or tenacious or proud, this thing that you are doing is never going to make you happy. And life will hit you over the head with a proverbial 2×4 if it needs to.
Remember, sometimes opportunity disguises itself as hard work but sometimes killing who you were meant to be disguises itself as an opportunity. Know the difference. Create those boundaries… even with yourself.
Because we only get one life. It would be a damn shame to waste it for something as meaningless as a really bad idea.
You, my friend, can live better than that.