80/20 of Your Success or Failure… Reacting to Setbacks

Think back to the last time you encountered a major setback, either in your personal life or as an Entrepreneur in your business.

How did you react to that challenge?

During my last trip to Israel, I visited a city called Tiberias, (a beautiful city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee which is also home to the Tomb of Rabbi Akiva).

Akiva is known for being one of the most famous rabbis, but he did not actually become Jewish until he was 40 years old.

In fact, the reason why he decided to become religious after his conversion is that the woman he wanted to marry agreed to marry him ONLY if he stepped into his promise, as she knew he could become a man of greatness.

He agreed, so she sent him away to Yeshiva. He was away for 24 long years. (For those of you who don’t know, Yeshiva is a traditional Jewish school that teaches Rabbinic literature).

When Rabbi Akiva returned home, he brought with him 24,000 students. Needless to say, his wife was proud!?

However, things took a turn for the worse when he was faced with a MAJOR setback immediately after returning home with his students…

A deadly plague quickly spread killing all but a handful of his students. In a blink of an eye, he lost EVERYTHING.

Rabbi Akiva now had a tough decision to make…

Do I take the easy way out and give up?

Or do I keep pushing forward?

As an Entrepreneur, odds are that you’ve likely asked yourself those same questions on multiple occasions throughout your journey.

The truth is, being an Entrepreneur isn’t all sunshine and rainbows (it’s a far stretch from what people see on social media)… Most of us aren't flying private jets and popping expensive bottles of champagne all the time.

Instead, it’s sometimes spending $2,000 on Facebook ads only to make back $327, then figuring it out.

It’s wondering how you’re going to meet payroll at the end of the month.

It’s a lot of stressful nights where your hands are crossed behind your head as you pace back and forth in your office wondering…?

“Is this really worth it?”

I had asked myself that very question over 13 years ago when shortly after I resigned as Chief Executive Officer of CL!X. Because back then, I, (just like Akiva), nearly lost EVERYTHING.

My house… My cars… My family… Everything.

I decided I no longer wanted to work for someone else. I wanted to be the master of my own fate. And to be honest, things were going okay at first because I had a sizable nest egg to fall back on.

But as 1 month turned into 6 months, and as 6 months turned into 18 months, I began to realize that I was in trouble—revenue just wasn’t there.

Before I knew it, I went from living a life most could only dream of to being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Things got so bad that I had to go to my young daughter and ask for her babysitting money just so we could pay our mortgage.

At that point in my life, there were really only two paths I could’ve taken:

1. Give up and take a job

2. Figure it out and keep pushing forward

Luckily, like Akiva, I decided to persevere and stick it out… and it’s a good thing I did or else Business Nitrogen would have never existed.

We would’ve never helped as many Entrepreneurs as we did in growing and scaling their businesses, and actualizing their visions.

As for Rabbi Akiva, he made the decision to start over after losing almost all 24,000 of his students.

He picked himself up and began teaching again, with one of his main teachings being to love your fellow man as you would love yourself.

So, whenever you’re facing utter uncertainty, doubt, or even defeat, always remember that life is 20% what happens to you and 80% how you react to it.

If you’re going through struggles right now, (let’s face it… we all are) I want this message to serve as a little nudge to keep pushing forward.

Because in the grand scheme of things, most of the problems we’re worried about today won’t matter whatsoever a year from now.

What will matter are the people who are by your side helping you grow each step of the way.

For example, when Rabbi Akiva came back from Yeshiva after 24 years, his wife was pushed aside by one of his students that yelled:

“MOVE!!! The Rabbi is coming in!”

Then the Rabbi said to his student:

“You know that lady you just pushed aside? It’s because SHE believed in me that I became who I am today.”

Similarly, I, along with your friends and family, are all in your corner rooting for you to succeed and prosper in life and in business… and I can’t wait to see the day when you finally “make it”.

I’ll end with a quote by a well-known Greek Stoic Philosopher:

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

— Epictetus

To your success,?

David

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