EPISODE 105
How to Lose Powerfully
With Don Schmincke
What if everything we’ve been taught about how to succeed in business was wrong? According to Don Schmincke, success is not about learning how to win…it’s about learning how to lose.
In his new book, Winners and Losers, Don uses scientific data, research from anthropological expeditions across the world, and his experience in training over 30,000 CEOs to argue that true entrepreneurial success arises from our failures.
Don is an award-winning speaker, researcher, and Founder of the SAGA Leadership Institute. His book The Code of Executive was a best-seller and his writing has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
Using his research from MIT and Johns Hopkins, Don uses evolutionary genetics to expose popular management myths and unearth controversial but scientifically accurate methods that accelerate sales, market penetration, competitive advantage, and organizational performance.
Taking a Closer Look at Failure
After working with over 30,000 CEOs and business leaders to understand what drove the success of their organizations, Don had received numerous requests to apply his research methodology to entrepreneurship.
There were plenty of books that looked at what successful entrepreneurs did right, so Don decided to dig deeper into what happened before their successes. What he found was that their paths were littered with mistakes, failures, and major losses.
Don began to suspect that the key to successful entrepreneurship lay in those failures–and his research validated that assumption. Over and over again, the successful CEOs he worked with agreed that this was what most research on entrepreneurship was missing.
Despite Don’s findings, he knew the popular advice to “fail fast” and iterate forward was a dangerous idea for entrepreneurs, for whom failure could mean losing their house or marriage. Instead, he encourages entrepreneurs to focus on their response to failure when it inevitably happens.
Embracing Failure and Taking Risks
As any entrepreneur knows, starting a business can be a minefield of challenges. What Don realized was that it was those moments of despair that seeded eventual success.
The most successful entrepreneurs were those who faced seemingly insurmountable setbacks, failures, and losses–and kept going. His advice for entrepreneurs is not to avoid failure, but to embrace it when it happens.
According to Don’s research, entrepreneurs are uniquely suited to tolerate risk and adapt to change. The most successful business owners know that they must destroy old, unsuccessful ideas to make way for new ones.
Enjoy this episode with founder and best-selling author Don Schmincke…
Quotes
“I began to see patterns where we were teaching leadership wrong, and then I began experimenting about how to do it better using different models.”
“It’s not a new theory, it’s an unearthing of an ancient one.”
“We’re only teaching what the great entrepreneurs have done right, but we’re not teaching what they did wrong. And I found that in the space of failure, that’s where they found themselves and found their strength, and they grew. We should be teaching more around that.”
“It’s not for everyone. Entrepreneurs tend to be okay with taking on a level of risk.”
“There were a bunch of management myths that I needed to debunk and replace with actual data and actual experiences.”
“You have to destroy before you can create. Entrepreneurs seem to be comfortable with destruction. Some of them, when the ideas fell apart, they could embrace the destruction because it gave them access to new creation.”
“The entrepreneur seems to have the capability or ability to ensure that level of risk.”
Links mentioned in this episode:
Podcast Resources
SAGA Leadership Institute: https://www.sagaleadership.com
Winners and Losers book launch: https://www.sagaleadership.com/w-l-book-launch
Connect with Don Schmincke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/schmincke-research-alliance
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