Richard Pierce Thomas

Leadership and Small Business Consultant

THIS past October 17, we crossed the threshold on our sixth year in business. To celebrate the event, my wife and I went out to dinner. Sipping on a glass of wine after our meal, we shared perspectives on the last six years, reflecting on the journey. 

“What a wild ride it’s been,” I said, communicating much more than words could say. She smiled a knowing smile. It was a déjà vu of sorts. Almost six years prior to the day, we were celebrating the launch of our business, Activate Leadership, over dinner. It was a big change for us. After spending twenty years in the plastics industry, I had made a jump that was about as far from the manufacturing world as I could get – leadership coaching. How I landed on that?

Well, its something I still scratch my head about and is the subject of a book I am writing.All this to say, at the time of our business launch in 2005, we were full of hope and promise. As it turned out however, we were not prepared for what lay ahead – three years of too few successes, repeated dashed hopes, and a brush with near bankruptcy. If that weren’t enough, the financial toll was too much to bear and we found our twenty-year marriage teetering on divorce.

“Too much information!” my fifteen-year-old son would say. Perhaps, however there is a purpose in sharing the personal details of our journey. What I learned in my six few years is that trying to separate being a business owner from my personal life is like trying to unscramble the omelet. It just can’t be done. I learned what happens in the business is mirrored in our personal lives. Conversely, what happens in our personal lives is mirrored in the business. Ultimately, what I had to reconcile was what am I striving for? And, was the outcome worth the sacrifice?

For me, my faith in God, my marriage, and my three children are more important to me than anything. And that meant that if I had to lose the business to save what was truly important, then so be it. It didn’t mean that I gave up. On the contrary, it gave me clarity and invigorated the fight to save the business. It’s just that I wasn’t consumed by it like I had been before, and things became easier to do. Like realizing I’d been gripping the golf club too tightly, and taking a relaxed, easy swing and knocking the dimples croff the darn ball!

I had a renewed sense of priority that helped me get clear about what I said “yes” to, and probably more importantly, what I said “no” to.

I learned what I’d always been told but finally knew by experience – there aren’t any guarantees. We can do all the right things and still lose. A.L. Williams says, “You beat fifty percent of the people in America by working hard. You beat another forty percent by being a person of honesty and integrity, and standing for something. The last ten percent is a dogfight in the free enterprise system.” All we really have control over is the first two – work hard (and smart, I’d add…), and be a person of integrity, standing for something. The rest, as William’s says bluntly, is a dogfight. And you can’t really appreciate how much a privilege it is to be in the fight without paying the price to get there.

In these recent economic times, we have learned many of the hard lessons my father’s generation learned. The lessons that sacrifice, failure, and getting knocked silly more times than we’d like to remember is all part of the journey. Fortunately, there is grace in the midst of hardship. Emerson says, “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

”As we begin a new year, my wish and prayer for you is not that you avoid defeat. But that when you get knocked down, you pick yourself back up. Do this, and I have no doubt you will eventually find success, and only then you will know what a privilege it is to be in the dogfight.