Don’t know about you, but I am certainly ready for 2010 to start. 2009 has been one of the most challenging times I have seen professionally. I saw some indicators in 2008 that this was going to be a tough year but holy cow. What does not kill us makes us stronger, right? I did have an experience the other day that I allayed some of my tension and it reminded me of why we do what we do, so I’d like to share that story with you.
I was meeting a close friend of mine who owns a local company and he was relaying an unexpected occurrence that he had dealt with that particular day. No wonder he wanted to meet for a beer.
Apparently there was some kind of accounting error that required him to write a very big check that day. Given the time of the year, I am sure this is not the only big check that he was writing like estimated taxes, renewal of licenses, and all the other stuff that just hits at the end of the year whether you want to or not.
Long story short, someone else in his organization had the responsibility to ensure the accounting was right and that person was flipping out over the error. Completely distraught. We entrepreneurs know that no matter what the mistake is, we still have to write the check whether we like it or not. Our mistake, their mistake, it is always our check.
What my friend told me next was truly enlightening. He said that he sat with the person who bore the responsibility of accuracy(by the way, this person is key to his organization both now and for the future).
He told him this: “There will be a day in the future when you have achieved success and wealth and someone will look at you and say ‘it must be nice.’ That person will never have had a day like today.”
To steal and modify a phrase from a song in one of the sitcoms I used to watch growing up: “We take the good, we take the bad and there we have the facts of (life) business ownership/entrepreneurship.”
For more real-life entrepreneur stories, check out my book, 15 Bedtime Stories That Keep Entrepreneurs Awake at Night. This story will surely make the next edition.
