An entrepreneur who published a scholarly newsletter realized his dream was literally killing him. After 15 years of non-stop writing, editing, layout, circulation, and marketing – all on tight deadlines – he couldn’t reverse the $25,000 annual losses. His emotions swung past anxiety into depression. His physical health started deteriorating too.
 
“I knew the day would come,” he said after deciding to shut down the quarterly, “but I had always thought someone else would make it for me after my demise.... What I have discovered about myself, while making this hard decision, is that I have this deep need to perfect everything I touch and then a profound desire to be appreciated for the significance of my work.”

A friend of mine named Mark left his sales job and embarked on a mission to Asia. His wife, Diane, quit her own job at a bank. Eight years and two children later, they reluctantly reentered American culture. Mark organized the small business of his dreams, but just before he hung his shingle, a new competitor emerged with a job offer in one hand, a broadsword in the other. Mark took the job rather than try to compete. “It’s everything I wanted,” he said. “I’ve got a steady income, benefits, an office, equity, and they offer lots of cool services that I couldn’t have done on my own.” The adventurous entrepreneur in him experienced a letdown, but relief overshadowed the disappointment. He faces a much more secure future, without battling the competitor.

John Schnatter, founder of Papa John’s Pizza, hit panic mode in 2001. The fourth-largest pizza chain in the world was growing too fast, and quality plummeted. “I just knew we were going to blow this whole thing up,” said Schnatter, who took the reins back when his CEO left. “I thought we were going to close 1,000 stores.” But three years later, the chain regained its lost ground. Schnatter recalls the rough ride: “Believe it or not, that was probably the most fulfilling, gratifying, humbling and proud experience of my life…. I like it when the whole world is falling apart. I liked fixing Papa John’s when it was broken.”

These three entrepreneurs saw their creations writhe in pain. But they rose to the challenge of rebuilding them from the ashes. Most of us have gone through disappointing downturns. How do we turn a setback into the basis for our long-term success?

When milk and honey go sour

In the book of Exodus, another empire builder named Moses was commanded by God to return to his Egyptian homeland to free his people from slavery. Moses pried them loose from Pharaoh’s grip to a life of desert wandering.

No one expected it would take 40 years to settle down. The people felt abandoned by God. The dream of a land full of milk and honey seemed like the vision of a crazy man. Though Moses struggled with his people’s daily needs, division, and disobedience, he built this floundering new society into a powerful nation. A sense of pride took hold. They were God’s chosen people, slaves of no one.

Like the Hebrew flight from slavery, America escaped from its own British bondage and made itself into a nation. When its dream died during the Civil War, President Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation…. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation … can long endure.” Lincoln’s vision of reunification of course came to pass. The Promised Land was whole again.

When we started our company nearly a decade ago, we became our own masters, slaves to no one. But like the Israelites, we entered a start-up wilderness, complete with wild animals, scorching sun, and internal conflicts. Raising money was like the glory of the hunt, but then came the skinning, gutting, and roasting! After many advances and retreats, victories and defeats, our dream, though bruised in this economy, is morphing into a promising future.

Creative destruction

Have any of your dreams died or splintered? According to Creative Destruction (Doubleday/Currency, 2001), they need to. The market itself creates and destroys at a smart clip. It keeps itself healthy by eliminating what is no longer needed. New, more efficient corporations out-flank existing ones, and the weaker companies must choose between death, spin-off, merger, or massive realignment. Incremental improvements don’t cut it. In order to survive, companies must create and destroy products, revenue streams, or whole divisions at the scale and pace of the market.

When threats loom, we have two choices. We ourselves can destroy the weakest parts of our organizations, or we can wait for them to be hacked off for us. Many leaders choose to execute their original plans at all costs, with only slight variations, refusing to drastically change the strategy or budget in mid-year. But to succeed in the long term, we must allow for the death of our shortsighted plans. Peter Drucker calls this the “organized abandonment” of products, services, processes, markets, or distribution channels that suck resources without returning productivity or profit. He stresses we must build strategic abandonment into a daily discipline.

I find great comfort when I try this kind of daily prioritization. When I reorder my task list based on each item’s contribution to the overall mission, I work more confidently. I’m acquiring the habit of asking a question whenever I finish one task and prepare to start another: “Will this be the best possible use of my time, and our company’s resources?” If I believe there’s nothing else I could be doing to further the company’s highest priorities, I barrel ahead and take as much time as I need on the item.

This kind of task management often requires me to kill an idea or dream that once excited me. I’ve noticed for the past several months that when I have a new idea, rather than fleshing it out right then, I simply add it to a list. The more I look at my list, and the more I force myself to kill off the waste on it, the more conservative (and realistic) my succeeding brainstorms become. I used to scratch my thoughts on a coffee shop napkin, noodling over them for 10 or 15 minutes apiece. Now I test the caffeinated inspirations before they leave the gate: “Will this idea just end up dying anyway? If so, why spend precious time developing it fully now?”
 
This methodology is a sort of birth, death, and resurrection. It’s a microcosm of the death of a dream, and the rebuilding of a better one from its ashes. As I continue to practice this process, I’m amazed at the liberation I feel when I shelve a proposed project that’s begun to lose luster. I’m proud of myself when I drop a scribbled-on napkin in the trash on the way out of Starbucks. As circumstances change, or my colleagues propound their own ideas, my earlier ideas are refined or expanded. The rebuilding is done for me.

The newsletter publisher, my friend Mark, and John Schnatter would agree that their personal dreams strengthened once they were rebuilt on their own ruins. I’ll wager their new plans will wither again, and the cycle of death and rebirth will continue. I marvel at Moses’ perseverance and patience as he suffered the rebellion of the people he emancipated. Talk about the death of a vision.

If you’re frightened by a dream that’s crumbling at your feet, recall Schnatter’s encouraging words: “Believe it or not, [fixing Papa John’s] was probably the most fulfilling, gratifying, humbling and proud experience of my life.”

For discussion…

Is there a dream of yours – or part of one – that needs to die?
What would you rebuild on its ruins?
Can you cut your current to-do list in half and focus on one or two priorities?