Nolan Garrett - F*ck Me Running (a Business)!: The Lessons Ive Learned from Turning My Mistakes into Successes

When I started my business, I thought I knew everything. After all, I was twenty - three and had just finished my degree. What could be so hard? As long as I delivered what the customer wanted, I was sure to be a success. Man, did I have a lot to learn.

What I didnt know could fill a book. So here we are.

There I was, running my company and quickly realizing that I couldnt do it all alone. I had to rely on other people. Yet they didnt seem to understand what I wanted from them.

Why didnt my staff get it? Or more accurately, why couldnt they all be like me, and want what I want?

They didnt have my drive. They didnt have my skills either, or the same drive to develop them. They didnt think like I did or communicate like I did. They didnt eat, sleep, and shower in the business like I did. And they werent necessarily willing to innovate or take risks. Looking back, they were all acting like employees.

They werent accomplishing my goals. Werent working well together or putting out high - quality work. Some couldnt even manage to show up on time. The problems simmered below the surface day in and day out, and when a client crisis blew up and I expected them to step up, they instead stepped aside and waited for me to come to the rescue. The harder I pushed them the more I found myself saying Fine, Ill do it myself.

I grappled with how to get everyone on board and take ownership for several years. My first two approaches, which were emotional and intuitiveand straight from the mind of a twenty - five - year - old were also resounding flops:

1. I love you guys. Thats right, I hired friends. They wouldnt let me down, right? They knew me . We had beers togethera lot. And if they got a little behind, Id help them outshow them the ropes, pick up the slack, and teach them how to be just like me. It never occurred to me that we had little in common when thinking about our designs for our lives except beers.
2. My staff sucks. Okay, so I (clearly) hired the wrong people, because the business isnt getting what it needs from them. I will just replace them with ready - made staff who know what I want, want what I want, and can do what I want.

I wasnt happy and my staff was even more miserable. I felt like a failure, which didnt make sense because Id always been an overachiever. But as CEO, I wasnt cutting it. I certainly wasnt working and thinking according to the title.

My first lesson was to stop expecting my team to think like business owners, and to meet them where they were. Further, I had to hold myself accountablein my role, in my actions, and in my speechbefore I could expect any Accountability from my people.

Being a leader is a challenging job, to say the least. Its not the same as being a normal employee or individual contributor, showing up to do a J - O - B , clocking out at five, and collecting a paycheck. The camaraderie you had with colleagues in your previous positions doesnt work when youre running the business or leading a team. You must manage yourself differently so you can manage your people. Thats on you , not them.

You have to be a leader. They want you to be a leaderand more than that, they need you to lead them. Not your staffs buddy, not their pal. They are looking to you for guidance, and motivation, and a reason to care. They want safety, too, so they can talk to you openly and without fear of repercussions. They want to know where youre going with the businesswhere youre taking them. Otherwise, all youre offering them is a job. And if all you have to offer is a job, then all you can expect them to give is the minimum required to not lose that job. What they wanta real leaderis the key to what you need: people you can depend on who exceed your expectations and love doing it.

If youre like many fledgling business owners, you started a company because you have deep skills in your subject area. Youre really good at something and decided to turn those talents into a business. If youre a CEO or executive, perhaps you were hired to the position based on those skills. Either way, unless you rose up a chain of command with people reporting to you, you likely have little to no team management experience. That leadership class you took in college doesnt count because when it comes to business, reality and textbooks arent one and the same. Far from it. Until you are in the CEOs or business owners position, you have no idea what youre in for.

Youre not alone though. In all my years of talking with entrepreneurs and leaders, I cant recall a single person who didnt have to deal with this challenge. People with no business or leadership background start companies every day. Companies promote people like this into leadership roles too. How many times have you seen the top sales guy or gal rewarded by being put in charge of a dozen other salespeople? Sure, they may be an ace at selling, but how are they at teaching other people how to sell? When this new leader fails, the company blames them instead of taking responsibility for not promoting the right person or providing the right training.

You dont have to fall into this trap. You do have to take it upon yourself to prevent it.

Running a business and being a leader goes beyond the relationship you have with your employees. Doing it wrong was one of my first major mistakes, but there were many more: bad partnerships, taking my companys culture for granted, underestimating the power in failure, and getting so caught up in all of it that I forgot to take care of myself.

Finally, I had no idea what an amazing experience being a success could be. Im not talking about the financial rewards when youre successful, or the prestige, or how cool it is to put the title CEO after your name on your business card. There is so much good that is possible for the leader who wants it. Good for your family, for your friends, for your employees, and for your community. First, you need to know what can go wrong so you can get it right.

Like every other kid in the twenty - first century, I planned to be a video game programmer. Majoring in computer science was a no - brainer . A class on information warfare that I took for extra credit made me fall in love with the idea of information security management, so I changed the focus of my degree away from video game development to information security.

Those were innocent times on the old interwebs. It was 2005 when some computer malware was going around, and people were hacking into websites for fun or recognition. Theft of credit card data was barely on the rise. They werent stealing health information and submitting false insurance claims. The global cost of cybercrime in 2005 was around $300 million (for comparison, by 2019 the costs were estimated at over $5 trillion). Most businesses got along with a one - person security teamjust enough of a presence to keep the companys lawyers happy.