“There is nothing more exciting scaling business, there is also nothing more dangerous” Jonathan Brake – Co-Founder Business In Bare Feet.

So your business is growing exponentially, things are going great, you feel successful and then one day you find things are not as it seems and it all comes collapsing down on top of you. This is hard but then you realize the people this is going to affect, their families, their loved ones, their communities.

This is a story that is sadly too often true for entrepreneurs. Its like watching too much news, we can become desensitized to the problem because it happens to so many right? Desensitized to the risks personally and financially. In fact some of us even learn to hide behind the legalities of “its not personal its business”.

But what really goes on behind the scenes?

This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Tamer Shahin where we discussed his story of scale and fail and rebuild. You need to watch the video to hear his story in his words but in short he was scaling what should have been a very successful business and with the failure of one client the whole thing collapsed. Tamer shares the journey he went on personally to recover, reset and where it leaves him today.

Lessons Learned

• The Illusion of Success

Failure will either destroy you or at least redefine your view of success. Tamer shares how he was chasing what he thought success was – money, possessions, kudos – but in this journey he was able to realize that people matter – being able to ignite something in others, was more about success than the money and the fame.

“What does success look like to you now? Freedom, impact and control.”

Tamer also talked about success being the alignment of outward metrics with what we believe is right.

• The Power of Preparation

Tamer’s definition of success is being able to impact as many entrepreneurs as possible and being able to help them on their journey.  He felt that he would not have gone through what he went through (and if you haven’t listened to our fireside chat you definitely need to listen to it at the start!), had he been prepared.  Tamer is now helping businesses and entrepreneurs so that they don’t need to go through the pitfalls that he did.

• Setting Your People Loose Is Key

In his journey, which involved a business partner spending time in jail overseas, Tamer had a an epiphany that being responsible for people wasn’t going to solve the problems the business faced, he could not carry their burdens, but being response-able – ready to take action, the right action in the right measure was the key.

• What Schools Won’t Teach You Life Will

“Schools are designed to teach expertise not entrepreneurship” according to Tamer. The school system is all about knowledge in a vacuum – they can’t teach you what failure looks like or how you should discover purpose or how to treat your team. As you scale your business it’s a certainty that life will teach you these lessons, learning well is the key.

• You Can’t Do It Alone

Tamer also outlined that to be successful at anything you need to be open to be coached and mentored.  In a recent video, he poses the question: Are 🚀 SUCCESSFUL Entrepreneurs Born Or Made? where Tamer explains the role that mentors can play in building  a successful entrepreneur.

Connect With SandTracks Mentoring Club

If you’re starting or scaling a business and not quite sure where to begin you probably want to conserve your precious resources, yet build momentum. You want to learn a lot, you need to learn a lot. Experienced entrepreneurs and business mentors are great people to guide you and SandTracks gives you access to over 25 global mentors who have been down the road – sometimes multiple times.

To connect SandTracks take the following steps:

1. Join the FREE SandTracks communities through our company page on Linked IN and/or FaceBook
2. Get into dialog with us through the above channels
3. Take the next step and join the SandTracks Mentoring Club – Here. For as low as $97 per month you will get more intimate access to the SandTracks team and suite of mentors.

SandTracks is powered by Business In Bare Feet.