Punch

Part of the “How to be THE business founder” series

In my line of 'fixing' work, I came across many talented business owners with great products and ideas.

But the most common fear amongst them is criticisms from their peers and families. Not from external but from the very people that know him. Isn’t it ironic? The very people that you depend on to support you, kick you down with their words, discouragements and just building walls around to tell you that you are not good enough.

And many fear that this will happen to them, again and again from past experience. So what do they do? They rather focus on their products bury away from all those noises. They chose not to tell the inner circle of friends and relatives for fear that criticisms or vicious critiques deliver that instant blow to both their knee caps, bringing them down slamming onto the ground, face first.

If you are one of those victims, here are some tips that you can adopt:

Learn to take a punch. Again and again.

When you put your work out there, be mentally, physically prepared. Not everyone will be a fan. Not everyone cares and not everyone will not bring you down. Go into the Ring, take a few punches, and get yourself numb to it asap.

Fear - put it aside from that everything is wrong and that everyone is coming after you. It is only a bad review, negative feedback. It won’t kill you or your business. Just suck it in all.

But come back to it and study why there was such feedback too. Do not walk away and brush it aside. If someone bothers to give you negative feedback, it is your responsibility to find out how genuine it is also. It is better to know that it is not good than to continue down the path going further and further away.

Emotional — It is okay to feel sad, angry, frustrated. Let it all in, count to 10 or 100 but manage that emotion and don’t react immediately. Fight back with better work in the coming future.

Improve - put more work out there, showcase more of your product or service to the world, to everyone! Keep getting hit again and again and learn to be numb to it. Numb to the criticism but not numb to improving the product.

Let everyone shoots you down, take the criticisms in, review them, and weigh if it is worth changing, improving, or even pivot it. Use it as a guide and improve on the next piece of work, next business, next startups. Without improvement, you won’t know what is needed and what be the next gap.

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Running your own business is never easy. You won’t have an easy day unless it was yesterday. So just take things in stride and roll with the punches.

Always Punch Above One’s Weight