Seeing Failure as Opportunity
Sometimes things happen in your career, and your life. You wonder how you can recover or turn things around. A lot of times, it’s not really what happens to you in life, but how you rebound. Neeleman tells the story of his first startup failure during college, and the airline partner he was working went out of business.
He shortly thereafter received a call from June Morris, who encouraged him to come and build Morris Air. Morris Air grew and prospered, and was sold to Southwest for 130 million and I was the second largest shareholder at the time. I learned a lot in that process. I learned about capitalization and being beholden to someone.
Second story– Shortly after selling to Southwest, I was miserable. I’d sold my baby, I didn’t fit in, and I was laid off. I had signed a noncompete clause for five years, and I was in my early 30s. I took the time to really think about what this company should be, and how we should build it slowly. Looking back, it was the single best thing that could have happened. We had, and spent the time thinking about recruiting, hiring training, motivating people, providing compensation and setting company culture.
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