Last week we celebrated Burns Night, the traditional gathering of the clans to commemorate the great Scottish poet who was born into a poor farming family, but is now the literary hero of a nation. He had to struggle to gain acceptance and appreciation and faced bankruptcy and failure many times.
I was reminded of another Scottish hero, Robert the Bruce, who failed in war but who is remembered for the phrase: “If at first you don’t succeed: try, try again!” Bruce was King of Scotland in the 14th century, fighting long battles with the English for control of Scotland. He was defeated in battle many times and eventually ran away to a remote island off the coast of Ireland where he lived in a cave.
One day, while sitting depressed in the corner of the cave, he watched a spider trying to start to weave a web. The spider launched itself across the cave to reach the other side and start to spin the web. Time and time again the spider failed to reach the other side of the cave, almost reaching his goal. But it didn’t give up and kept trying.
After many attempts, it was successful, clung onto the other side of the cave and started to spin its web.
Bruce was inspired. He realised that feeling sorry for himself and accepting failure was undignified. He emerged from the cave, gathered his army and set out to defeat the English. And at the Battle of Banockburn in 1314, he forced the English Army to retreat. Bruce was recognised as the King of an independent Scotland. He had achieved his goal. And secured his place in history and legend.
The moral of the story is that there is no shame in failure. Indeed, failure can be good. Trying and failing with honour and dignity is certainly better than giving up or making half-hearted attempts. Indeed, the biggest kind of failure is to concede defeat and return to mediocrity.
This lesson is directly relevant to business. Many start-ups fail. There’s nothing wrong with that. Many of the most successful businessmen and businesswomen have a couple of crashed businesses under their belt. But they didn’t let one collapse deter them. They learnt from that failure, understood better how to build a successful enterprise and tried again.
And maybe again.
Eventually, like Bruce’s spider, they found the right formula for success, built up and grew their company to achieve their goal.
Taking risks is part of daily life. Sometimes risks will bring success, prosperity and added dignity; but sometimes they bring failure. Any young person thinking of starting a business should not worry about what their friends or family will think of them. And anyone with a budding entrepreneur in the family should not try to hold them back for fear of risking the prestige of the family.
A son or daughter starting out in business is like a baby starting to walk. When a baby falls down after a few first faltering steps, should the parents stop trying? Of course not: continuing to encourage the baby will inevitably lead to the child walking and then running and then doing somersaults.
Any young person trying to start a business needs to take risks and not be scared of failure. Just like the baby walking, and just like the spider spinning it’s web, people starting out in business will have to Try and Try Again.