A new venture is an open landscape of the unknown. It is one thing to receive and process advice and another to know how that advice is applied in context. It is one thing to be aware of risks, and another to recognize which risks are worth the effort. It is one thing to have a sense of optimism, and entirely another to see that optimism as delusions of hope.
As much as business is about juggling numbers and finding the differences between cost and profit, business is an art form that balances selfish pursuit with interpersonal satisfaction. If that sounds like every relationship type that can be named, that is because it is. If I create a painting, I have found joy in the creating but it is equally important how that piece is received and understood. If I have composed some music, it is quintessentially evoked from an emotional, personal context, but how that music is heard is what validates the expression. If I have a lover, it is just as important that I experience joy with that person and that they have joy with me. If my business is intent on serving others, the mutuality of benefits is crucial to success; those who do not feel heard, understood, or empowered by the interaction will find those things elsewhere. The lessons of failure are about how we learn as well as what we learn.
When failure is realized - in whatever degree, in whatever context - there are immediate emotional and practical consequences. Since no human activity is ever separate from our emotional state, those emotions both contribute to - and are the consequence of - our choices. Business and emotions are often distinguished and expected to exist separately for good reasons: money is not moral, and money is not intelligent, and personal achievement is not an ethical basis for making individual decisions. Those things are, however, not practical to entirely eliminate. Removing the humanity from a human endeavor has just as many consequences that can be just as devastating as becoming emotionally entangled with outcomes. We all know the horror stories of business decisions made without human consideration; the bigger the company that makes those decisions, the more damaging those choices can be. Rarely is it discussed how the person (or persons) making those decisions have cut themselves off from their own humanity by making those choices. Failures will always occur to lesser or greater degrees so it is important to understand the sources and reasons, but just as important to understand culpability for those failures. Those who distance themselves from emotional involvement often eschew responsibility and so learn nothing.
Analysis of the root causes for failure is invaluable and leads to new paths of growth if one can survive the pain. Compassion for oneself after a failure is irreplaceably important. Care for others that are sitting in the zone of consequences is a vital part of recovery from failure. Ultimately, the financial rewards of business are the prize for making human connections, not merely for arranging numbers in an effective way. Have you provided the best product you can provide? Did you meet the needs of the customers that sought you? Was there honesty and disclosure of weaknesses from the outset of the interaction? Are there mitigation plans in place to overcome those weaknesses or to work through them? Are actions that were discussed being implemented in ways that satisfy perceived needs? Were assumptions made? Did you move too quickly? Did you ask the right questions when they needed to be asked? These are things learned by experience with context even if one has the theory to begin with (which most of us do not). Experience happens with failure as a necessary part of evolution.
Recovery from failure takes time. It requires that we remember our strengths, our better selves, and to manifest those qualities. The other side of our intentions can look completely different from what we wanted or planned to see, or can put us in places we wanted to avoid. Ultimately, it is not the failure that defines our qualities as artists and entrepreneurs but rather how we process failure and apply those lessons in the future. In those cases when a failure has brought us back to square one, we are revealed by how we begin again.
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