Resilience.
If you're browsing articles on this site, two things are probably true. First, you're probably in Chicago, or associated with Chicago in some way. Second, you're probably interested in start-ups. Seem like fair assumptions?
If you have any thoughts of thriving, or even surviving in either of those worlds, you're going to need this one key trait above all others: resilience.
First, as it relates to Chicago. This winter is killing us. We've had our 35th day of measurable snowfall. Four 'snow days' that closed schools. The temperature has dropped below zero 16 times. When is the last time you've seen the sun? How many times have you dug your car out? Shoveled your walkway? How many shovels have you broken? Have you replaced your car battery? Fixed a frozen pipe? Slipped on ice? Been the victim of 'switching problems' on the CTA?
And yet each morning, through it all, we wake up, bundle up, and go to work. And it is hard. It takes resilience. You get through one day, then another, another, and before you know it, the 'gloomy and cold' forecast has turned to 'sunny and cold', and things are looking up. Pitchers and catchers report to camp, the tulips begin to shoot up, and you remember why you live in this great city.
The other pre-req to reading this is that you're interested in start-ups. Maybe you'd like to be part of one, maybe you are part of one. And this is true, even though you know your odds - that most will fail.
You're choosing the start-up lifestyle even though you're having a harder time than you imagined making sales. Even though you're running out of funding. Even though you're having trouble finding funding.
The odds are stacked against you, but the vision of success, the feeling of being a part of something meaningful, the joy of doing something you love - these are the reasons you fight the odds every day.
And what happens if you're in that 75% of start-ups that fail, and you have to close your doors? You get up, lick your wounds, and get back out there. Just like we do in Chicago winters. Maybe you tweak your idea, or maybe you have a new idea. You go back out there armed with a new set of experiences, a new set of lessons, and you try again - this time all the wiser. You are resilient, because you have to be.
For inspiration you remind yourself of those that came before you. You remember that Airbnb had a collection of maxed-out credit cards before they made it. You remind yourself that Evernote was days away from having to close its doors before turning things around.
And you remember what Thomas Edison said: "I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."
So you get up, bundle up, and get back to work.
