The season of recommitment
This is a season of celebration as well as the season of recommitment. So as entrepreneurs, it’s definitely fitting to recommit at this time to our ventures. This is just as true for those of us who are also investors. We are all entrepreneurs. Recommitting may not be easy at all; if you’re like most of us, you may sometimes wonder if you’ll really make it in your business. It’s at this point that recommitment is all the more necessary. Let me suggest a readily available source of inspiration.
Biographies of great leadership under fire, well written or filmed, can be a perfect inspiration to recommit to your vision. Let me suggest two that will leave you touched, moved and inspired:
First is “Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure” — an IMAX movie. The New York Times on Friday, February 9, 2001 stated: “This documentary retelling of the explorer Ernest Shackleton’s astonishing, inspiring 1914-16 expedition may be the best IMAX film so far. Fortunately director George Butler … allows the amazing story of Shackleton and his 27 men … and their impossible survival in one of the harshest environments in the world, to work its own magic.
Even if you’re familiar with this classic true tale of leadership, courage and endurance, this film gives you a sense of the physical beauty of the place that drew men like Shackleton and the ill-fated Captain Scott at the end of the era of exploration.”
In case you don’t want to go looking for this movie, a book for business leaders based on the Shackleton journey is available – Leading at the Edge by Dennis N. T. Perkins. An online reviewer recommends: “Although their experiences may sometimes seem torturous, most managers aren’t facing dangerous or life-threatening conditions. Even so, argues consultant Perkins, they would do well to learn from both triumphant and failed expeditions. A former Marine lieutenant, Perkins introduces 10 key concepts he believes are essential to productive leadership with lively anecdotes from the adverse but ultimately successful expedition to the South Pole led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914 (his entire crew survived on the ice with almost no supplies or hope for rescue after their ship drifted off course and was crushed)…”
What’s so compelling about this story is that it was clearly Shackleton’s extraordinary leadership practices, and little else, that made his crew’s triumph possible. By the same measure, I believe it is your extraordinary leadership, and little else, that will make your business triumph, and you a successful entrepreneur, no matter how well or poorly conceived your plan.
Let me repeat for emphasis: YOU WILL TRIUMPH IN BUSINESS BECAUSE OF YOUR LEADERSHIP, NOT BECAUSE OF YOUR PLAN. You will be a successful entrepreneur because of your success as a leader, not your success as a planner. This observation give you a perfect basis for recommitment, because you need only restore faith in your leadership (a skill which you can master) in order to master your fate.
You’ll discover a second more recent inspiration in the book and movie (in theaters now) “We Bought A Zoo” about the real-life purchase of a rundown zoo by the real-life Benjamin Mee. The book, a memoir, was not well reviewed but the movie is fine and you should go and see it (particularly if you like animals.) As a story of leadership and recommitment, this one may remind you of why you went into business. It’s also a perfect date movie.
As someone who is dealing with death in the family mysefl, and renewal of purpose, I found “We Bought a Zoo” particularly powerful. You may find it inspirational as well, or just plain fun.
Tags: Angel investor, Benjamin Mee, Dennis N. T. Perkins, Leadership, Leading at the Edge, recommitment, Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition, Venture capital funding, We Bought a ZooLeave A Comment
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