Tweet

Lesson #1: “If you get knocked down, get back up again”

Article Overview: “I have a number of famous quotes, and one of them is, if you get knocked down, get back up again,” says Hawkins. “I don’t really feel like I want to let anything ultimately defeat me.”

Lesson #1: “If you get knocked down, get back up again”

"I have a number of famous quotes, and one of them is, if you get knocked down, get back up again," says Hawkins. "I don't really feel like I want to let anything ultimately defeat me." Hawkins is a seasoned entrepreneur - hardened by the experience of having one of his own startups go bankrupt. But looking at the success of his current company, Digital Chocolate, one would never know it. He dusted himself off, and got back up again, in a big way.

"You know you're gonna have failures, there's no way to avoid it. Especially if you're an entrepreneur, if you're doing something new, of course there are gonna be mistakes. How can you not make mistakes? You don't know what you're going; it's unchartered territory," says Hawkins. Indeed, in his long-held position on the edge of new and cutting-edge video game and console technology, Hawkins has consistently chosen to navigate unchartered waters.

Still, he says he has been able to do so thanks to his willingness to make and learn from his mistakes. "You have to have the kind of personality where you're resilient and you can get up and keep moving and learn what there is," says Hawkins. "What I tell my employees is, ‘I want you to make mistakes. If you're not making mistakes, you're not trying hard enough. But, when we make a mistake, let's all study it. Let's all learn from it. After that, we want to make different mistakes. We don't want to keep making the same mistakes.'"

That is one lesson Hawkins learned the hard way. "I've done everything possible that you could do wrong...I've seen what happens when the whole house burns to the ground. It's not a lot of fun," he says. "But the important thing about mistakes is to study them and figure out what learning there is that you can extract from it, and then get up off the floor and get moving."

In fact, that mentality is one of the number one things that sets successful entrepreneurs apart from the culture that exists in big business, according to Hawkins. "You know what big companies do around mistakes? Number one, everybody tries to avoid making them, so nobody ever does anything very interesting that's new. And, if a mistake gets made, they try to cover it up, or they try to use it to win a political battle by blaming somebody else that's a rival. Not very productive."

Entrepreneurs who embrace that culture will not last long, he says. "If you have that behaviour in a small company, that small company is going to fail - no question. You've got to have a culture that says, ‘Hey, if there's a problem, we've all got to be talking about it because there is something for everybody to learn, and it's perfectly ok to make mistakes'. What is not ok is to not learn and to make the same mistake again."

Related Articles
  Miracles, life and business lessons Part II
  Will You Let Little Things Get in Your Way?
  Get Up Again When You Get Knocked Down
  The Highest Leverage Investment in a Business is...
  The Gravity of Failure

Article Tags: chocolate, current company, cutting edge, entrepreneur, famous quotes, lesson 1, personality, startups, unchartered territory, unchartered waters, video game, willingness



Related Forum Posts
Dan Kennedy Marketing Methods - We haven't sent out the physical letter yet as the person owning the list wanted to make modifications to the letter that we knew would work well but the List owner had a point - it didn't reflect her personality so her clients would know it didn't come from her. Lesson learned for me. We're back to the drawing board with the list owner more involved in the development of the letter and emails. I should have known better being a Business Analyst in my day job that you never leave the end-user out. So Evan we haven't had the opportunity to test any of it yet but it's been a fun process for me to stand back and look at.
Re: Google updated page rank - PR is just funky in general. This just goes to show that you shouldn't use PR as your only measurement of success. I don't believe PR holds as much weight anymore, anyway. Google's new algorithm has messed up a lot of high ranking sites, and even knocked my site back a page or so. We just need to keep on top of things to keep our rankings up. I personally wouldn't worry about PR if I'm consistently ranking on the first page of Google. At that point, PR becomes irrelevant.
Sports franchises even affect other countries - I was watching the Yankees vs Red Sox yesterday, and pitcher Chien-Ming Wang got knocked out early. The announcers were saying that he is big business in Taiwan, with their business rising and falling depending on how he does in his games. (Now that I try to remember [i:141w7dbz]exactly [/i:141w7dbz]what they said, it's not coming back to me, but in any event a lot of money rides on each Wang start.) You can always go for a small franchise and build it up.... like a professional women's football team...
No calendars! - [quote:ejx8bvjo]On the other hand, Telus is giving away free 2008 calendars to their subscribers. I think branded calendars make excellent gifts because it's something small/inexpensive and a client can use it on a daily basis to be reminded of your company. [/quote:ejx8bvjo] Unless there's something unusual about them - they talk or something - I would think that giving away calenders is, right now, anyway, a bad idea. Why? Because everyone does it! My dad gives to a few charities, and every single charity has sent him a calendar for 2008. (Same as they've been doing for the last ten years, at least.) He's got at least ten so far. I suppose he could give them to friends.... OFF TOPIC RANT (Of course he also gets t-shirts, throws, address labels, little beanie baby type things, etc. which also irritate him no end. He gives a small gift to a charity - like $25 or something, and the next thing they're sending the equivalent of that back to him, asking for more money! I know he's knocked several charities off his list because he doesnt' like being approached just a week after a donation with a request for yet more money! He also doesn't like charities that try to "guilt-trip" him into making donations, by sending him a check for a dollar, whcih they're sure he won't cash...)
Re: How did we Live before Electricity - I honestly couldn't imagine life without electricity. Even the camp I go to for hunting has electricity; although, the one year we had supper under a propane light as the weather knocked out the power. We have become so accustomed to modern technology and rely heavily on electricity that we don't even give it a second thought. We take a lot for granted that people in the early decades never got to experience. I remember my early years with no TV, computer, cell phone, etc. I can't imagine not having those things now, and we wouldn't if it weren't for electricity. Electricity has surely changed our lives and the way we do things.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Make Small Commitments. Get Big Changes.

Why Use an Advertising Agency

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.