Become A Man... Take An 'L'

Can you take a jab and strike back, or will you be knocked out in the first round, never to return to the ring?

To become a man, do you have to learn how to take a loss?

And I don't mean to be sexist with this term, not at all.

I'm speaking as a man.

I feel to become the man I need to be to succeed, I have to recognise and take losses.

It's a part of the game.

The virtue of competitive endeavours

I was never a great competitor as a child or teenager.

I didn't put enough effort into anything to become good, that's the truth.

And therefore, when it came time to play, I would never win the game.

And that would hurt.

And so it was easier to stand around, hands it pocket, kicking the football out of the field to let my teammates know: don't let me get the ball if you want to win the game.

Tennis was easier, hitting the ball so far into the field that it would take me the entire lesson to 'look for it in the hedges'

And then after school finished, there was nothing to keep me engaged in a competitive space, besides possibly video games.

But that was not enough.

Footballers learn to play as a team, they learn to take a loss.

Martial artists learn the hard way, taking a loss in the most punishing of forms.

Even Chess players get their ass handed to them and learn some strategic thought in the process.

Competitive sports is something we should all be into, just for the sake of taking a loss over and over.

As I entered sales positions in my twenties, my competitive spirit came back in full force.

And taking a loss? Tell me about rejection.

There's nothing worse than losing a sale.

And opening your own business is an extremely competitive field, I learned that the hard way... by failing after fifteen months and nearly going bankrupt.

Yeah... it happens.

And so, taking a loss became real.

A little too real.

Blowing out the framework

Managing your losses is hard.

You face a problem, you have two options:

• Maintain this framework and solve the problem
• Give up on the framework and drop the entire endeavour

Let's say you lose a football game. Do you give up on playing football?

Or do you play the next game, head held high knowing that you gave it your all each time?

And if you face a problem in your business... do you simply give up?

Or do you handle that problem and move on to the next stage of your plan?

I blew out my framework.

In March my website server was hacked.

Twenty websites I were hosting all hacked.

The web service had a back-up of my files, but they had taken a back-up recently and they were still hacked when we tried to restore.

The next week? I had ￡700 in charges to keep my business running.

No money in the bank, no way to offer client's services, and a lot of people threatening to take me to court over this issue, customers complaining...

As I said, I detonated the explosive and blew out my entire framework of being.

The business I had worked on? All the websites I had done? They were gone.

And the problems didn't go away, they intensified.

I eventually sorted most of the problems clients had, refunded some of them and helped create (some) client's websites at other providers.

I still had a major problem.

I had to find a new reason to live.

Playing to win the league, not the game

The fight was lost. Brutally.

But the war was not over.

I still have decades on this Earth.

I couldn't sit in self-pity, thinking about the business I had destroyed with my neglect.

I had to move forward.

And so I switched my thinking.

Why did I get disengaged with my business and allow it to slip out of my hands?

Everything I had ever wanted.

Working from home, my own hours, my own money, my own brand... control.

And yet I let it all go. For nothing. All because I wouldn't put in the work.

The portfolio was there. The client list. The process worked.

I got complacent.

I did not focus my efforts enough on one discipline.

I did not plan for the long-term.

I did what was easier in the moment.

And it was all because I was lost.

I had become lost.

Even in my own business I had got bored.

I felt like a slave to my own process.

Why? Because I wasn't doing exactly what I wanted to do.

Nobody is predicated to write copy, design websites, handle social, PPC analytics... all those skills in one person?

You're a wizard if you can do all those things effectively.

And I couldn't do all those things effectively.

The only thing I was selling was website design services.

The real passion was the writing, but I had only done a four-month contract with one client within the whole year.

I had plans to open the business under a different name, offering the same services. All the same.

And then it hit me... I have to learn from this experience.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again... and expecting a different result. Isn't that right?

Wisdom is earned

Knowledge leads to experience.

Experience leads to wisdom.

Wisdom leads to... something.

Enlightenment?

I don't know.

But one thing I do know, there is no cheating that last one.

And it's the most important one.

Wisdom to me is a knowledge of yourself and the world you live in.

I don't need to Google an exact definition, but that's as precise as I could be.

Insight comes from taking action and learning how to take a loss always follows action... because generally when we start something, we are absolutely terrible and we lose a lot.

Winning comes later.

And so, the wisdom in this insight, in this reflection, in this article?

Taking a loss proceeds taking a win.

To win, we must first learn how to lose.

And the quicker we can recover from a loss, the more likely we are to win.

You cannot cheat wisdom, it has a cost.

You must sacrifice the moment for the future.

You must take action and push your boundaries.

You must think, reflect and get better over time.

And then maybe you have a chance to become a winner.

But for now, you must be comfortable being a loser.

Be more than comfortable.

Don't be bogged down with the losses... they'll come, but remember the game is there to be played... so play it.

Be happy to lose.

Be happy to take part.

But don't get it twisted...

Nobody wants to lose.

Play to win. ;)