Be Relentless • Fall Seven Times, Get Up Eight

Last night I lost a fight with a step stool. The step stool won. And somehow, while I was lying flat on my kitchen floor, I found the one lesson every entrepreneur needs the day they want to quit.

There's an old proverb I keep close: fall seven times, get up eight. I've tested it more than most. Life has thrown me enough curveballs to qualify for an Olympic dodgeball team, and the score still reads in my favor for one reason. I always get up one more time than I go down.

Here's what happened last night.

I scooted my little step stool toward the refrigerator to put a soft-cooler bag up on top of the cabinets, the graveyard where good intentions and seasonal Tupperware go to retire. I reached up, I lost my balance, and I went down like a sack of groceries, tailbone first, in the most undignified tumble of my week.

Now, Brett had just gotten home from a four-day flight sequence. My hard-working husband had been gone for days, went upstairs to unpack and repack for his next flight sequence, and he was about thirty seconds from a shower when he heard me scream, followed by a loud thump on our stone floors. So he came flying down the stairs to "rescue" his wife.

He was completely naked.

I'm lying on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling, thinking, Fuck that hurt, and there's my husband standing over me in his birthday suit like a very concerned, very nude superhero. So I asked the only reasonable question a woman can ask in that moment.

"Baby, why are you naked in our kitchen?"

He chuckled. "I was jumping in the shower and I heard you scream. You're welcome for getting down here so quickly."

I laughed. Of course I laughed. And then I just stayed there on the floor not laughing. I didn't want to get up. I already knew my tailbone and my shoulders were going to bruise up like a banana left in a gym bag, and I hurt. So I lay there a few minutes longer than I needed to, and that's when the highlight reel started playing in my head.

The Battles I've Survived

While I was laying on that floor, every physical fight of my life came rushing back at once. Every scar on my body is proof I've survived the thing that was supposed to end me, and I wear each one like a badge of honor.

In 2002, a drunk driver hit me head-on and, literally, rewrote my life. I suffered compound fractures in both arms and both legs, my bones shattered into hundreds of little pieces, paralysis in my left eye, and a two-week medically induced coma. I woke up to a healing process that's lasted the rest of my life, and I had to learn how to walk and talk all over again. Let me tell you, even though it took me two years to do what a toddler does in twelve months, I'm still so damn proud of myself for that particular recovery.

Then came the seasons that tested me as a mother. Two of my children were diagnosed with serious, lifelong illnesses, and that turned me into a madwoman hunting for the best doctors in the country. I drove across the state, not once... but, sometimes several times a week, every week for months, to get them the care they deserved. I spent hours on hours researching the right specialists and the most up-to-date treatments. I was a Mom On Fire. My son, a successful fireman to this day, will tell you the only reason he still has his eyesight is because of his unwavering Mama. Those seasons were the most relentless I've ever been in my life.

And then there's the loss I carry closest to my heart. I lost my mother to suicide, a grief I still hold with grace and not a single regret about loving her so LOUDLY. Maybe that's part of why I'm so relentless. I know exactly what giving up looks like, and I know how much pain it leaves behind for the people who stay. So if you're reading this and the weight feels like too much for you to carry, please please please reach out to someone...NOW. In the US you can call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any hour of any day. You matter, and this world is better with you still in it.

In 2012, I was diagnosed with Graves Disease. In 2019, I had a massive stroke while I was working in Seattle. In 2021, I had a heart attack while I was working in Detroit. Three separate times the paperwork said I was "Damaged Goods," and three separate times the paperwork was wrong. Every time, I've come back stronger. I ran my laptop from the hospital bed after the stroke, and again after the heart attack, and I was back to work two weeks after each of my babies was born. I've collected medical events the way some people collect frequent flyer miles, and trust me, the rewards program is terrible.

Sadly, my falls haven't all been physical. I've reinvented myself more times than I can count. I've gone from working for Fortune 500 corporations to privately held companies to owner-led shops. I've built and owned my own businesses, and I've consulted for just about every kind of industry there is. Every one of those career-pivots looked reckless from the outside and felt like I was free-falling from the inside. I got up from those too.

People ask me all the time how I've gotten through it. How a person walks out of ALL of that and still runs companies, still shows up positively, and still builds profitably. And my answer never changes.

I'm relentless. I don't give up on myself.

So what does a kitchen floor have to do with your business? Everything.

Here's the part nobody tells you when you start a company. The thing that takes you out is almost never the giant catastrophe. You can brace for those. When 9/11 hit, every one of us knew the world had changed, and we adapted. When Covid shut the doors, we pivoted overnight, half of us running companies from our kitchen tables in pajamas. A monumental disaster summons a monumental response. You see those coming, and you grit your teeth to meet them.

What takes you out is often the small stuff. The dumb little step stool. The product launch that flops on a Tuesday morning. The client who ghosts your whole team. The social media post that earns four likes, three of them from your aunt. Those little falls pile up quietly, and one ordinary afternoon you find yourself lying on the floor of your business thinking, I don't want to get back up.

That feeling is human.

Staying down is a choice.

And the difference between the business owners who make it and the ones who fade out comes down to one thing: whether they get up one more time than they fall.

I've watched it play out for more than thirty years in my career, in my own life and across every business I've built and advised. Grit beats talent every time. The gifted business owner who quits at the first flop loses to the persistent one who keeps adjusting the strategy and showing back up. That's being relentless, and relentless is a system you can win with. I call mine The G.R.I.T. Code.

The G.R.I.T. Code • the system you get back up with

Motivation gets you off the floor for a moment.

A system keeps you standing for the duration.

The one I built and launched is The G.R.I.T. Code. Four letters, four jobs. Run them in order and the comeback runs itself.

G is for Goal • the KONGquest. One objective per quarter, written as a single sentence with no numbers in it, on purpose. This is the territory you're claiming, the hill you plant your flag on. A KONGquest should make you sit up a little - Be the first call in our market, the one people make before they shop around. The numbers come in the very next step. The Goal sets the direction, and your results make it measurable, so it never stays a daydream.

R is for Reframe the fall. A mistake you refuse to learn from is the only one that truly costs you. Learn from it and you've now turned something awful into something rewarding. Your failed launch is now market research you didn't have last week. Your lost client just told you something about your offer. Stop filing your setbacks under shame and start filing them under data, the kind you can use.

I is for Inch forward, on purpose. After my 2002 accident I didn't sprint back to my life. I had to take one step at a time, then one more, and before I knew it I was walking again. When you've flat-lined, you don't need a five-year strategy plan. You need the next inch… you need to take the next step. One email. One call. One post. Momentum is built in inches… compounded baby steps, and inches are available even from the floor. I always say that Motion = Results. Don’t overthink it - just take that first inch-step forward.

T is for Take action. Even if you don’t feel completely ready - just do ONE thing that will propel you forward! Take that one step that will get you closer to your goal; even if you don’t feel completely ready. I've rarely felt ready, and I moved anyway. You won't wake up motivated, so stop waiting for the feeling and let the action create it. Move first. The confidence shows up afterwards, late as always, like a friend who never apologizes for being tardy.

That's the whole Code. Goal, Reframe, Inch, Take action. Run it in that order and you become very hard to keep down.

You're between falls right now, and, I promise you - getting up is a skill you already have.

I don't know who needs to hear this today

Maybe your battle is enormous. Maybe it's grief or illness or a year that's taken more than it's given. I won't compare wounds with anyone, because pain doesn't run a leaderboard.

Or maybe your battle today is small. You're trying to engineer the right prompt so ChatGPT stops giving you garbage. You're hunting for a dinner recipe for Saturday night that won't end up in takeout. You're trying, for the hundredth time, to be consistent with your social posting and the algorithm keeps treating you like a stranger.

Big or small, the solution is identical.

Keep going. Don't give up. You've got this. Be relentless.

I got off that floor last night. Bruised, a little wiser, married to a man who answers screams at full speed and full nudity. And this morning I went back to building businesses, because that's what we do.

I'd love to grab a virtual coffee with you, because the climb is steadier when someone's climbing beside you, and I've got a feeling you've got a story or two worth telling over a cup.

Link: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/lets-grab-virtual-coffee

With Grace, Grit & a Newly Earned Respect for Step Stools,

Jo Rawald