Confessions of a Failure | Losing a Business

At the age of 28 I found myself dealing with a Business Failure, and the first failure of this magnitude I’ve ever had to face in my life. Several feelings and sensations were felt at the time of writing, however the dominant emotions I was continually bombarded with were Crushing Guilt, Shame, Anger, Worry and Denial – and not necessarily in that order.

We all need to take stock of our lives every once in a while and remember, everyone on this planet is imperfect. The mistakes we make in our lives are our opportunities to learn. We may call them nasty words like ‘Failures’, however, the lesson is still there for the taking – whether we acknowledge it or not. The road to success is faster if we acknowledge the lesson, learn from it and set off on the next road of our lives.

This is my story, as hard as it was for me to write, it was harder to put it on show for all to see, however I feel it is important to share.

The Final Day

A meeting with my Solicitor and my new Insolvency Accountant the previous afternoon had alerted me to my situation. To sum up the themes of that meeting, ‘No Money, No Income, Lots and Lots of Bills – time to ‘’shut it down” as Gordon Ramsay would say on Hell’s Kitchen. The truth was that what I had on my hands was ”Hell’s Business”.

I had been advised that it would be a good idea to continue trading for the remainder of the week. Today was Tuesday and that meant four more days of being in my once beautiful shop with no customers and constant phone calls from creditors. When my solicitor had suggested it yesterday, it had seemed do-able.

Sure, trade another four days and get as much income as you can (ummm‚ what’s that again?) and then close up for good on Saturday.

Walking into my almost empty shop that morning and pretending I was fine was hard. Then, the worst possible thing happened. The phone rang.

I froze.

‘Answer it!’, my mind screamed at me. But my feet would not move. Fear gripped my throat. I knew it would be one of the twenty creditors who had been chasing us for money. We had none.

I had given them every excuse in the book and then some. I felt so ashamed.

These people are owed money by us and we cannot pay it. Surely that must be unforgivable?

The phone continued to ring. I was at the point that the possibility that it could be a customer wanting to place an order didn’t even sway me. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Surely I wasn’t thinking straight. Fear and Desperation can make you do some strange things.

Silence.

It had stopped. I sighed with relief.

Realisation hit me then. What had I just done?

It was official. I was too scared to answer my own phone. Even the sound of it made me panic. I had been hearing it in my nightmares for the last 6 months. When all of this hit me I did the only thing that seemed logical.

I broke down and cried.

Crouched on the floor of my backroom in what once was my fabulous shop, I cried.

This was how my staff found me half an hour later. This was when they too knew it was over.

Week One

On Monday visits to my solicitor & accountant opened my eyes to the gravity of the situation. Their advice was to pull the pin. It was over. It was time to let go and move on.

I was by no means ready to accept this opinion and for a moment I had a fleeting thought like, ‘but they don’t really know me, they don’t know how much this means to me, how hard I’ve tried to make this work’

My first thoughts of this nature were met with swift rebuttals later that afternoon. They are professionals who are trained to see when a business is no longer profitable, viable or worth the effort. They are trying to make me see what I’ve known deep down for the last three months.

My plans of continuing to try were suddenly looking ridiculous. Why would you willingly continue to put yourself through this difficult experience? Why keep trying to make something work that just clearly isn’t any more? Why keep hoping that things will ‘pick up’ when they haven’t for months?

I knew the reason. It was because I didn’t want to Fail. I didn’t want to ‘let everyone down’. I didn’t want to be known as a Failure. For a time, the idea of pushing myself to keep trying to ‘make it work’, was bearable, because the only alternative was to give up. Giving up meant failing and that was the one thing I wasn’t ready to accept.

The meetings with my Professional Team shattered this silly logic. I had convinced myself that as long as I kept trading, even if it was at a loss, that I wasn’t a failure. What I didn’t realise was that we had been doomed long before this. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but unfortunately being blinded by hope is something that can make us continue something that should have been forgotten long ago.

On Tuesday a meeting with the Insolvency Specialist was a big eye opener. It was difficult. His words of comfort were that we were still young. That the amount of money we were losing was small compared to many other companies.

Accepting the reality that people were going to lose money because of my failure was a difficult thing. What it came down to though was that we never asked for it to happen. The specialist reminded us that we had no way of knowing that a direct competitor of our business was going to open up two doors away. We had tried our hardest, worked for free to try to make it work, but it hadn’t happened. It was time to let go. It was only money he said. It wasn’t the end of the world.

My accountant had advised us that we had to find the positives in our situation. There were always some. Wise words, but unfortunately they were falling on partially deaf ears.

My guilt was crushing.

On Wednesday my way of dealing with our situation was complete avoidance. I came up with a fantastic logic for it. I had decided that since I’d given myself so completely to my business for the last few years, it was time to be selfish. Time for ‘Me’.

So that’s what I did. I baked, something I hadn’t done in years. I kept our house immaculate. I did loads of washing, walked the dog, surfed the internet & watched movies. Some relief had surfaced. I was almost glad that I no longer had to go into our shop, open up, hope the phone would ring and that it would be a customer on the other end rather than a creditor. I had relaxed a little.

I knew I had lots of work to do.

The specialist required a sum of money in order to begin the liquidation, which we didn’t have. There were accounts receivable which were due to us, close to this sum and we had to send those out as well as a letter to advise them all that we had closed. My accountant required tax forms and bookkeeping and many other jobs had to be done to ‘tie up loose ends’.

I didn’t want to do any of it.

On Thursday I was beginning to feel very tired.

This was a mystery to me. I wasn’t working. I hadn’t had a holiday in nearly 2 years and had been working 60 hours a week. Perhaps my body was trying to catch up my husband had suggested. That sounded like a good explanation. I took it. It was a good excuse for why I was sleeping 9-10 hours a night and just fumbling through each day.

By Friday, the house was looking fabulous and our little dog was in heaven. Plenty of attention, walks, bones, treats & cuddles. She had certainly accepted the new situation with open arms, or paws. At least someone was benefiting from all this.

Our cash was limited, so I was telling myself that baking was a great idea. Saving money but still enjoying treats like homemade pizza, muffins, cookies & pretzels.

I still hadn’t done any of the work I was supposed to.

My family were a little concerned. They lived two states away, so I knew that they felt nearly useless. There were many phone calls and their constant support was wonderful. ‘It’s not your fault’, was a popular comfort. ‘You tried your best and that’s all you can do’, was another. Why didn’t I feel any better then? It would take time, they told me. Right, so I’m meant to feel extremely guilty and responsible for a while then. Not to mention like a great big failure. Ok, got it.

I knew they meant well.

The internet was helpful. I Googled things like: Famous Failures, Fear of Failure, Combating Guilt. Many sites gave me tips and help. But I still felt like my situation was unique and so much worse. I wanted something more. I wanted to hear from the people who’d been there and somehow against all odds, made it out.

On Saturday I began to feel amazed at how quickly a day could go when I was doing basically nothing. With my ’selfish’ logic still holding fast, I pulled my violin out of the cupboard. Again, something I haven’t done in too long. I played and played. I cleaned it. Changed a string, rosined my bow, tuned it and sorted out my music. My guilt was still there. It had now compounded though. All my work was still waiting for me.

I realised that it was such a nice feeling to no longer be afraid. Afraid of not paying bills. Afraid to answer the phone. Afraid of not being able to afford to pay my staff. My fear, however, had now been replaced by guilt. Guilt and collapse. My dreams for our business had been shattered. I had just finished updating our website. It had been a complete overhaul. Now it was useless.

I felt lost. What was I going to do now? My Husband, in his gentle way, was continually reminding me that he couldn’t do it on his own. We needed an income from me to survive. This was ironic considering that I hadn’t paid myself from the business in several months. The minor amounts I had been able to take as drawings had helped us manage. Just.

I knew what kind of jobs I didn’t want to do. This in turn made me feel even worse. The popular saying kept going through my head ‘beggars can’t be choosers’. I shouldn’t be picky. My arrogance was in the way though. Having worked for myself for so long, the thought of going back to work for someone else should have been welcoming. It only added to my feelings of failure.

Our families were coming to stay in a couple of weeks time and Sunday was spent shopping for a new spare bed. It felt strange, I’d said to my husband, to be shopping when we were going through such a bad financial time. Luckily my parents had insisted and were paying for the bed as an early Christmas present. The timing of their visit had now turned out to be perfect. I needed them here now more than ever. On the plus side, with the shop closed, I’d have plenty of time to spend with them.

Week Two

On Monday the guilt was still there. My feelings were shifting though. The thought of getting everything done and moving on was now starting to look enticing. I was starting to imagine a time in the not too distant future when I would no longer have this guilt suffocating me. No longer have these loose ends that need to be tied and these issues to be dealt with. I know that one day people will stop talking and that I’ll be able to go back to where our shop had been. I am almost excited at the prospect of having a ‘new life’. I’m starting to imagine the things I could do. Daring to think that I’m not destined to be ‘just a failure’, but rather ‘Someone who failed and then went on to become successful.’

I realised that I had a choice. I could choose to conceal my true feelings, work for someone else and live the rest of my life secretly feeling like a failure. Or I could face it, deal with it, and move on. In the short term, this is the difficult option. Dealing with it was a scary prospect. But the idea of feeling like a failure for the rest of my life was a worse one. A little dramatic perhaps, but it seemed to work for me.

Week Three

A meeting with one of our Creditors has been requested. One of the worst gut renching feelings I’ve ever had penetrated me as I walked into that meeting. They were late. For fifteen long minutes I was forced to sit and await their arrival. Thoughts of yelling, pointing and shoving were swimming through my head. All of it ridiculous of course. I glanced out the window – rainy, cold and windy. It suited my frame of mind and mood perfectly.

A polite greeting followed by a disjointed and awkward conversation. I knew he blamed me, although he didn’t say it in as many words. It didn’t matter anyway. I already blamed myself. Too many questions were tumbling out which I didn’t have the answers to. I had never been through this. I only knew what my professional team had told me and was following their advice.

After the most agonising half hour of my life, he called the meeting to an end. A polite farewell, with the promise of future contact and updates. Neither of which I was looking forward to.

The guilt was still there. It followed me everywhere. I had decided to use this time to learn as much as I could. Audio Books and Self Help CDs are doing the trick. I discovered that my situation had a lot to do with how I interpreted it. I had a choice. I could choose to use all of my present moments dwelling on my mistakes – wishing for what might have been and berating myself for making the wrong decisions.

Or I could choose acceptance. I could accept what had happened. It didn’t mean I had to like it, but I had to recognise that it had happened, that I learned from it, and that I could move on.

There is always a choice.

Conclusions

From my experience I chose not to let it rule my life for each present moment from there on. I couldn’t change the past, but I could change my present frame of mind and actions. I chose to learn from my mistakes and experiences and to use them to hopefully help others who find themselves in the same position. I discovered there is no ‘right’ way to deal with a Failure experience. But you must simply find a way to ‘deal with it’ – period.

A failure will shape who you are and lead you down the path to your future successes – wiser and stronger than you were before. It is certainly not an easy road and there will be good days and bad. However, you must experience each day in turn – do what must be done and ‘get on with it’. Everything happens for a reason…never forget it.

All the Best. xo

Read more about Facing a Business Failure