Nicholas Haralambous - Do. Fail. Learn. Repeat.: The Truth Behind Building Businesses

First published by Tracey McDonald Publishers, 2018

Suite No. 53, Private Bag X903, Bryanston, South Africa, 2021

www.traceymcdonaldpublishers.com

Copyright Nicholas Haralambous, 2018

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-0-6399264-2-1

e-ISBN (ePUB) 978-0-6399264-3-8

Text design and typesetting by Patricia Crain, Empressa

Front cover design by Ron Olivier, incynq solutions

Digital conversion by Johan Koortzen

Printed and bound by Novus Print Solutions

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedicated to Jen.

I am because you are.

PROLOGUE

B uilding things is hard. Building a business is extremely hard. Its meant to be hard. Its being hard means that most people will not build a business of their own and thats absolutely fine. Not everyone is a founder or an entrepreneur. Without people to work in businesses entrepreneurs would not be able to scale their lifes work.

In my life, living has meant doing. Ive always done things very proactively. Ive always aspired to do more and more things. I cant imagine a life without doing. That means that a lot of my time has been spent failing. When you start out doing something you generally arent very good at it. Most people will drift towards something that they are kind of good at or can do with some level of competence. Theyll do that thing until they become good enough to be paid to do it. Then they stop trying to do anything new or different. They stop doing more. They stop trying to get better and therefore stop failing. Ive never really had it in me to stop trying to get better and stop learning. I always want to do more.

Failure is an integral part of learning. Unfortunately the world today believes that failing is bad and as a result we have, on the whole, become fearful of failure. Ive spent my life embracing failure, indulging the experience, basking in the frustration and despondence that failure brings. Ive discovered through lots of doing and failing that this is the best way for me to learn and improve. I do, then I fail, then I learn. The more I do the more I learn. Sure that comes with a significant amount of failure in amongst it all, but whats a little pain to achieve a little gain?

The learning part is definitely the most complicated part of my building process. Its easy to fail and then slump into a depression and forget that there is a lesson in there somewhere. Its easy to fail, trust me, Ive done it a lot. In fact its probably the thing that I am most successful at. What happens with most people who are building a business is that they will fail and then feel like a failure. Its feeling like a failure that makes most people want to stop doing and stop learning. Theres a difference between failing and feeling like a failure and I think that learning is that difference. When you learn through a failure you have not failed. Youve learned how not to do something. Youve learned a new way to not solve the problem you are working on. There are many versions of the famous Thomas Edison quote about inventing the light bulb and his views on failure, I like this one the most: I have not failed 10,000 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.

This is not a book about how you can make millions of dollars. This isnt even a book about how I made millions of dollars. I dont have millions of dollars in cold hard cash in my bank account. Not yet. This is a book filled with lessons. Lessons that I have learned over many businesses, many failures and from many different people.

This is a book about starting something and failing a lot. This is a book about relationships, people, networking, loss, and all the other things that come with starting a business and building something that has meaning.

The past is remembered in different ways by different people. The same moment in time can be seen and retold in myriad ways. What follows is my experience of the things that I have done and how I remember doing them. Those who did them with me may have a different view and thats fine. Thats their story to tell. This is mine.

Starting a business has not made me a happy person. Many would argue that it has done the opposite. But starting a business has made me feel more alive than anything Ive ever done. I dont know how to live another kind of life any more. Starting a business has given me incredible insight into the way I live my life, the choices I make and the systems I use to engage with the world. My goal is to tell you about my experiences and the lessons Ive learned through doing. These are not only lessons for entrepreneurs. These are lessons for anyone who wants to rethink and reframe the way they exist in the world and live their lives. Right now you might be building something without even realising it. Really think about it right now. Are you building a career, a reputation, a family, a skill set or maybe a team? If so, then you might need to shake things up, rethink and reframe the way you are building.

Over the past 15 years I have experienced mental instability, depression, paranoia, joy, sadness, confusion, elation, frustration, physical sickness brought on by stress, strained relationships and everything in between.

If you are thinking about starting a business or a new project or you are currently running one right now then this is a book for you. This book is meant to help you understand that everyone running a business or doing something new feels like you do. Everyone running a business is scared that they arent good enough, scared that they will fail, scared that they may not be able to pay salaries at the end of the month, scared that the success they have found will be lost along the way. Everyone is drowning in the thoughts that they may not be good enough.

Its taken me many years to be able to talk about my experiences without trying to make them sound better to pump up my ego and make myself feel OK about my shortcomings. It makes me happy to be honest with people, to build things, to learn things and to fail. Success is a nice by-product if you can get it, but it is most certainly not guaranteed and not where you should derive your joy or self-worth. In fact, if you want to be successful and happy then you probably shouldnt start a business. You should get a job and work in someone elses business. Let them suffer the burden and the turmoil. But you also risk giving them the glory and freedom if they make it. Sure, it is a risk but one that I dont know how to live without. This is all I know how to do now.

Each of my businesses has taught me something specific that has changed the way I experience the world. Im writing this book with the hope that when you read it you will understand that you can build businesses, your new home, your new family, a team, a project at work or absolutely anything if you want to.

There is no universal piece of advice that everyone can adopt. All I can tell you is the following:

Every business that I have ever started began with me believing that I would succeed. They all started with me thinking that I knew what I was in for. They all started with a very clear goal in mind and a destination that I was aiming to arrive at. Unfortunately things very rarely work out the way I plan.

Starting a business will not make you happy. Starting a business is statistically not going to make you wealthy. Id go so far as to say that starting a business is probably going to make you fat, sick, mentally unstable and broke. And thats just the good parts.