Assignment 26A
When completing potential interviews for an assignment in this
class, I called up my Uncle, who is a Vice President of a Fortune 500 company,
to get his feedback on the possibility on the success of my business idea.
While going in I believed wholeheartedly in my plan and couldn’t imagine a way
it wouldn’t succeed, I was met with opposition from him immediately. Instead of
attacking the idea itself, he probed me and asked over a hundred questions
about my immediate, short term and long-term vision of my “company” with such
detail that I could not answer to. I felt ill-prepared and could not answer his
questions in a realistic and professional manner that illustrated that I
understood what my own company was. I decided, after a half hour of embarrassment
that ended with him explaining to me that if I don’t understand my business
than no one else will, that I needed to change my focus from overall excitement
about a concept to strictly detail-oriented and become obsessed with improving
the details that would sustain my business in the long term. In terms of
failures overall, I handle them relatively well and try to turn the initial
depression into motivation that will increase my drive to overcome that
unwanted but needed adversity. With this class, in particular, I believe the
assignments have pushed me to go beyond my normal comfort zone and become
completely involved in the growth of both myself and my business concept. I’m
thankful in many ways for something to push myself to such a degree that I have
now adapted to approach tougher situations in a positive manner.
This failure was a great reality check that led to you seeking to know your own idea inside and out as well as having a greater ability to adapt. It is good that the advice and "failure" came from someone with great experience that you can learn from. Sometimes you don't know what you don't know and now you have the knowledge to see where you can improve and the skills to make it happen.
ReplyDeleteHi Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI think with failure, you have to be able to push through and keep going even it seems to hard to keep going, especially with things you are passionate about. So with getting drilled about your company and feeling like you were "defeated" may have been hard, but the fact that you kept going and learned something from it, is extremely beneficial. I am a firm believer that you learn the most from the times you fail and more people need to know that it's okay to fail. Turning that depression into motivation is a huge plus and is a great way to make light of your failures.
That would be hard to hear since you really were invested in your idea. It is sick that your uncle is the Vice President of something that big because you will always have connections and support. Nice work!
ReplyDelete