Resilience: It's Not How Hard You Hit, It's How Hard You Can Get Hit And Keep Moving Forward

About a year ago, Reflect7 was gaining massive momentum with our sports apps. Right when we were at the top, we took a roundhouse kick to the face from Apple. Having our apps denied twice in a row was almost our deathblow. Our egos took the hit as the control over our own destiny appeared to slip away…

Emotional Blocks > Real Blocks

After several rejections, the end was nigh. My biggest fear, and probably JP’s and Corey’s, was that Apple would reject our apps again after we had revised them to Apple’s stated needs. Looking back, my actual fear was straight up rejection. Being told “No, you can’t do this anymore.”

Fear is a strong motivator not to do something. This is when the excuses and rationalizations start pouring in. Backwards rationalizating the strategy of taking alternative action for fear of rejection is something I’ve been guilty of many times. Nothing preps the ego for flight like the possibility of being rejected.

Resiliency\

All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure.” -Mark Twain

It’s important to note that ignorance needs to be balanced with reasoning. At one point, the problem really was our apps and we had to be vigilant enough to realize that. Ignorance, in Twain’s terms, is more of a blindness towards restraints. Having an anything is possible outlook with the confidence to follow through.

Mr. Twain has held my hand as I’ve been rejected by a slew of girls, ebay, usps, supply chains, teachers, etc. I got through all of those with little scarring. Why couldn’t Reflect7 get through this with just a few bruises? All we needed to do was be:

Ignorant: consider that the true problem was a lack of communication after we had revised our apps.
Confident: assume that Apple wanted to work with us because we are a quality company with quality apps.

As it turned out, more communication clarified what could have been a crippling situation. We took the hits and kept moving forward. It was a pivotal victory for our team - it was one of the first times that we stood up after getting knocked down.

The Take Away

What I’ll try to remember next time we’re dealt a big blow:

Don’t automatically assume the negative when something goes wrong.
Don’t take it personal.
If your going to assume something, assume that everyone is going to agree once more information is presented.
Shit happens, but it’s how you deal with it that makes or breaks you.

If you liked this, or you want to get your ass kicked into gear, you may like:

Steve’s Comment on Work Until Your Eyes Bleed