The entrepreneur, business owner, and people manager are faced with difficult decisions as a part of leadership whether it be deciding to abandon a goal or eliminate jobs through a layoff. Erik Gross, our guest this week in episode 268, highlights the importance of learning from our failures while also owning the decisions that led to those failures. Listen closely to the way Erik owned his decision to become a software developer after some very pointed feedback from a friend. Original Recording Date: 02-17-2024 Erik Gross is a technologist, a consultant, an entrepreneur and founder, and a career coach. If you missed part 1 of Erik’s story, check out Episode 267. Topics – Advice for the Technology Entrepreneur, Resilience or Blind Optimism, Three Perspectives on Layoffs, Managing People and A Good Manager, Paid to Work in Technology 3:07 – Advice for the Technology Entrepreneur * Would Erik’s advice for technology entrepreneurs be the same? He thinks back to former guest Al Elliott’s description of an entrepreneur from Episode 235, emphasizing that the entrepreneur’s initial idea of the solution to a problem may look different than the ultimate solution. * Erik says as an entrepreneur he’s had both successes and failures. The form something was in when it became successful or failed was quite different than what Erik had thought in every case. * “There’s this thing I learned…over the years…moments when you find out that you’re wrong about something are golden. They are some of the most important moments you can ever have in your life. You find out a few really important things about yourself in that moment.” – Erik Gross * In those moments… * Do you have the self-respect to admit and realize you were wrong? * Identifying what you were wrong about, which could have been affecting your performance for years, presents an opportunity to never do that thing wrong again. * The above took Erik years to learn and handle and is how he generally reacts once he gets past the emotion of being wrong about something. In his entrepreneurial work and in his work with people trying to break into tech (via The Tech Academy), Erik coaches others to process these situations in the same way. * We know that no one can be right all the time. It’s the way we respond in those situations that helps us grow! Erik calls these moments “growing moments.” * Nick would point out two hurdles in these situations: * Getting past your ego and questioning your self-worth * Motivating yourself to keep going and change what you’re doing or decide to quit * Erik would agree and say there are 2 factors at play: * “What you say to yourself sticks. When you say positive, self-validating things about you, they have a tendency to stick. But when you say negative things about yourself…maybe you never voiced them out loud but they are inside…those unfortunately stick really, really well. I’ve found it really helpful to recognize that most of those things, they come from outside influences. They come from others’ criticism, others’ attempt to belittle you or cause invalidation or cause uncertainty or worry in your life. And you can grab on to them and hold them, and they start to feel like that’s actually you. But they originally came from outside of you. When you’re a kid, man, the world is your oyster and life is full of brightness and gold and goodness and joy. External influences can beat that out of you, but it never truly goes away.” – Erik Gross, on negative self-talk and its origination * When you have been knocked down,