Battling doubt is part of entrepreneurial survival. Discover how to escape the doubt trap — for yourself and your entire team.
One evening, around a campfire, an old Cherokee told his grandson about the battle that rages within every human being.
He said, “My son, the battle is fought by two wolves that live in each of us.
One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, worries, pain, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, prejudices, inferiority feelings, lies, false pride, and ego.
The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, goodwill, affection, generosity, sincerity, compassion, and faith.”
The grandson thought about his grandfather’s words for some time and then asked, “Which of the two wolves wins?”
The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.”
How does this relate to entrepreneurship?
Think about success and failure. Entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster, and there is no success without setbacks, times of doubt, and bad news. Many times in my career I had sleepless nights and doubts if we were on the right track. Lost deals, passes from investors, negative media coverage, and many other sources of negativity.
There are two ways of dealing with such situations: Either, you’re feeding the evil wolf, making the problem worse than it already is. Or, you’re feeding the good wolf, and you try to overcome the problem by looking ahead instead of looking back.
Let’s look into some strategies.
Feeding Your Own Wolf
If bad news hits you, reacting with agitation, negativeness, or demotivation is perfectly fine. Allow yourself to have one sleepless night. As the Founder & CEO of Yonder, a B2B SaaS company, I had my fair dose of sleepless nights.
But: If you keep feeding your evil wolf after that sleepless night, even positive events suddenly will start to look negative. Your evil wolf will undoubtedly help the bad news metastasize from one activity in your company to all the others. Do you really want this to happen? I don’t.
Back to the sleepless night. When bad news hits you, it’s always wise to sleep over it before deciding what to do. Sometimes, a night is not enough, and you need some physical and emotional distance to think about the situation in the overall context. For me, that distancing works best in the mountains. The serenity of the scene, the fresh air, and the quiet have often helped me find a new, positive way forward in a situation that seemed hopeless in the beginning.
So that’s how I feed the good wolf. I take a step back, think of my options to handle the bad news and focus on the future instead of the past.
Feeding Your Team’s Wolves
If you’re not a solopreneur, you are not alone in your company. If you are negative, that attitude will metastasize to your entire team, dragging everybody down. Ultimately, a negative overall attitude in a company will impact customer relationships, team culture, and your bottom line.
By the way, it’s the same for your family. I vividly remember the times working in the corporate world, when I brought home my anger from work. Eventually, I quit the corporate world because I decided neither my wife nor my kids deserved the negativeness.
Therefore, if you’re not all alone in this world, remember that your own wolf always feeds other people’s wolves.
