The Murder I Wrote: Being Killed & Respawning

I recently got killed.

Not literally, of course.

But in a business sense, I recently had a major set-back. As in MAJOR.

There was a big project that I had poured nearly everything into -- nearly nine months of hard work. Nine months of researching and planning and investing and meetings. Nine months working towards a singular goal that seemed destined to happen ... until it didn't.

The specifics of what went wrong and how it got off course don't matter so much, but the life lesson here does -- particularly the part about how you pick yourself up again and show resiliency. I went through this process over the past month or so and I took some notes along the way. And that's what I want to talk about today in the first chapter of "Leveraged Storytelling" of 2024.

Getting Killed

Getting killed on the business playing field is a lot like laying it all out on the football field, soccer pitch, or basketball court -- and then coming up short just as time runs out. But unlike a sports match, where you always have another game -- or at least another season ahead to look forward to -- in business, "laying it all out" can mean just that. You've brought people along with you on your journey. You have expended more resources than you probably should have. You have spent more time and energy than you care to sum up. You're exhausted and dejected.

When you really go head first into something and it all works out -- you might be exhausted, but it was all worth it. But when it doesn't, you feel murdered. But it's a murder you wrote.

This allegorical reference to a killing or murder are the only words that I can muster that captures the feeling of loneliness and despair that follows a defeat of a project that was nearly a year in the making -- and one on which you had so much riding. And dealing with its aftershocks has been something that I have been working through over the past month. And its a process I call "respawning."

To Respawn

For those of you not familiar with the term "respawn," its a term that comes from the world of video games, when a character is granted another life after dying or being killed or otherwise eliminated during the course of the game play. Usually the respawning process means the player is temporarily sidelined and forced to watch the game from afar for a few moments while the character regenerates. In some games, the character comes back to life but is wounded and lacks some of the abilities or strengths that it once had until certain feats are accomplished or a certain amount of time has passed.

And that is why the concept of respawning is an ideal metaphor for capturing the process that ensues following a death on the business battlefield.

As I have gone through this process, I took a few notes and it basically all comes down to five distinct phases:

1. Mourning. I tried to skip this phase initially, but I soon realized that its unavoidable, and the faster you realize that you need to pause and mourn the loss you suffered, the more quickly you can pick yourself up and move on. But the mourning phase is critical; its a stage in which you let out all your anger, sadness, and frustration. Its important to have people around you who understand what you are going through and can love and support you unconditionally during this period without judgement. No advise, no "well you should've this or should've that." Just love and support.
2. Accepting & Reflecting. As you move on from mourning, the natural next step is acceptance. In my case, I began to see with a bit more clarity how I could have managed the project differently, or in my specific case, how I shouldn't have had so much confidence in a process that I ultimately didn't control. But coming to terms with your defeat and accepting it for what it is marks a critical stage of the respawning process.
3. Salvaging. Once you have mourned and accepted your loss, the next phase is salvaging -- finding what you can retrieve from your experience that may still hold value as you move forward. In some cases it may be some relationships -- people who walked through the flames with you may be those who you know you can count on in the future. Or maybe the exact opposite -- you may not like what you learned about some people who went through the fire with you -- and these might be people you want to avoid in the future. Maybe there is a client adjacent to who you were thinking about selling to initially. Maybe the business idea needs to be tweaked to serve a different market. Either way, see what can be salvaged -- and grab it.
4. Re-energizing. As you begin to take inventory on what you still can salvage from your journey, you naturally begin to feel re-energized. Not all was lost. Although your previous journey didn't have the outcome you wanted, you didn't come away empty-handed. And that realization has an amazing impact on one's psyche. At least it did on mine.
5. Re-imagining. Finally, with your batteries recharged, and a new perspective in terms of what you can do to leverage what you were able to salvage from your previous journey, you can re-imagine a new hill to climb. In this new journey, you are smarter, you see the pitfalls and you avoid them. You move faster, because you have been down a similar course. Its new terrain but not unfamiliar. You are respawned.

I hope this quick guide is helpful. If you'd like to reach out and share your own story of respawning I would be happy to talk about it and share more of my perspective about this process. Unlike in a video game, the professional respawning process is painful. It hurts. And it takes time.

But once you understand the contours of how respawning happens, it can go a lot easier.

Cheers,

Arick