Isabelle Saladin, serial entrepreneur, founder of I&S Adviser, shares his experience. Episode 5 : the power of failure… and on the rebound.
the failure and the rebound are my companions since a young age. Dyslexic but not diagnosed as such – like a lot of children going to school in the 1990s where this condition of learning was neither named nor recognized, I had a lot of difficulties at school, and comments were more or less friendly on my report cards or during parent-teachers. It is highly influential to an age where your personality and ego are built …
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The game is part of my DNA since childhood. I’ve always enjoyed the challenge, get out of the boxes in which they sought to put me. For example, I would have been able to confine myself to the CAPE than the one I recommended. But the secretariat did not appeal to me, I wanted to do something else, have fun, create, not by denying my difficulties, which would have been impossible – but by assuming them. So I decided to choose a sector for which I had a priori not have the required skills. I ended up getting a BTS in alternation, and then I’m part of the United States to continue my education to the Silicon Valley… And everything switched on at the professional level there, because no one stopped at my failures in school, or in my difference.
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Undertake, take part in a game that includes risks
In the same way, create a business, it is to make a bet, take a risk and accept it. It is quite possible to succeed without having the profile type of “the successful entrepreneur”, which is described in the books. There are many examples around us : Bernard Tapie, Richard Branson, Norbert Dentressangle and many other lesser media. Their common point : to be a player, dare to take risks, accept them (especially when business is going poorly), and assume that they are.
It is this strength of character, or rather this inner conviction of his ability to bounce back, which allows a contractor to undertake several times. And it is the skill, the ability should be encouraged to develop in all the entrepreneurs. Because build and grow a business never is a long quiet river. It is necessary to be mentally and psychologically ready to go through periods of doubt, or even complete failures. And for that, one is never quite ready.
When I had to put the key under the door of Art-DV (market place of objects made by hand), I understand the rule of the game of entrepreneurship, namely : when we play, we can lose. And surely my experience since childhood of failure, and the rebound has been very helpful for this step. The most difficult was not the closure of the company, but also the separation with the team, humanly complicated to manage.
Assume for ourselves, or encourage others to assume
businesses closing, there are every day ; businesses that create also ! But I had debts to honour. I have, therefore, had no other choice than to bounce back quickly. After an analysis of what had happened to me and a work of mourning for my company, I looked for a job employee (I could not create a new enterprise as a result of my pointing 040 to the Bank of France). I have activated my contacts americans and French. The Americans responded in six weeks where it took nine months to the French. And this, for the same reason ! In the Hexagon, I had stuck the label of “loser” ; on the other hand because I wore this entrepreneurial experience and that I took all the history, including the failure, an american group I was offered a very nice challenge.
All this, I was convinced that it was necessary to encourage entrepreneurs to do more to hide their mistakes and their failures. Hence my commitment to the creation of the movement of the Rebondisseurs French. Create this association entrepreneurial is a different way to carry my failures, in defending the idea that it is inherent in the business of contractor and saying loud and clear that this is not at all serious : on the contrary, it is what is called experience. So, I made my chess strength, not only for me but also for others.
Read our complete file
Books entrepreneurs
“The courage to say, is an asset in business” Entrepreneurs, if they stop to say : “I’m not doing this for the money,” “fear, an ally for the entrepreneur”
Assume its weaknesses is the best way not to be afraid. And to give free rein to his entrepreneurial spirit.