Gratitude through Adversity

Gratitude is so important as an entrepreneur.

The older I get, the further along I am in my journey, the clearer this becomes.

It’s not just about the wins. It’s not just celebrating deals, or clients, or funds raised…

Being grateful for the challenges is just as important.

Look at nature, for example.

Nature has cycles to allow for a continual renewal and reuse of essential elements like water, carbon and nitrogen.

It’s not always summer with sunshine and rainbows.

There’s strong fluctuation to maintain the balance of ecosystems. 

Resources are constantly recirculated and replenished, making life on Earth possible.

Life and the entrepreneurial journey is the same – just a lot more unpredictable and continuous.

I challenge you to find one entrepreneur whose journey isn’t littered with failed experiments or adversity along the way.

We need to remain grateful for, and through, these experiences.

Or else what are we doing? We’d just be torturing ourselves and everyone helping us.

It’s hard, but even through the biggest stresses of your career, you need to recognize that this is sharpening your axe.

It’s making you stronger.

And it can be beneficial for you personally in other ways too. You can create bonds and strengthen connections by overcoming challenges.

You can grow as a person.

You just have to treat them as an opportunity for growth.

And see it as “good” as Jocko Willink does when bad things happen.

It’s an opportunity to step into your higher self. Which, in itself, in these difficult moments, is a challenge.

But even then, we should remind ourselves to be grateful to even have the opportunity to be an entrepreneur.

To design things the way we want. To shape our own environment, team, and the choice of customers we wish to serve. 

And yeah, it’s easy to be grateful when you’ve just signed a new client or closed a new deal.

You don’t even need to worry about being grateful then.

The problems, the challenges, the obstacles are when gratitude really matters.

This is when, if you’re overwhelmed and unable to feel grateful, it can affect your whole being, inside and outside of work.

I’ll admit, the last few weeks I’ve definitely fallen into Ollie Evans 1.0 rather than the 2.0 I’m striving for.

But the first step is reminding yourself who you want to be, and how you want to act.

Not letting these things slip by.

Asking yourself: are you acting according to how you want to show up, or not?

And if you’re not, you’ve got to make those changes.

I’m not suggesting being out of touch with endless positivity that isn’t connected to reality.

Rather a true recognition that there will be challenges in the path forward – as Ryan Holiday and the stoics have said, the obstacle is the way.

Reminding yourself that you don’t only want to be grateful when it’s easy.

As Admiral McRaven said in his famous commencement speech to the University of Texas:

“If you want to change the world, you must be your very best in the darkest moments.”

Consider stories in religious texts. Moses, Noah, etc.

For thousands of years, these stories have told us that it’s all about the trials and tribulations, the adversity, the overcoming…

We hear this saying all the time, but even these ancient stories were essentially telling us it’s about the journey, not the destination.

The same applies to your entrepreneurial journey.

Otherwise when you do finally make it, what are you going to talk about in your TED talk?

If there weren’t any challenges, if it was stress-free smooth sailing the whole way, who’s going to listen? 

Keep reminding yourself that no matter what happens, you should return to gratitude.

Use it as a grounding tool.

A baseline to always return to.

That’s the way forward.

And it’s one of the best ways to stay clear, levelheaded and sane while navigating the storms along the way.

Talk soon,

Oliver