What entrepreneurs can learn from cancer patients

“Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” Vivien Greene

If you passed through the lobby of Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital last week, that quote would have greeted you inside the front door. Although it was directed at the patients, families and staff of PMH, it struck me that it could apply to entrepreneurs across the continent.

Entrepreneurs can learn from the courage and intestinal fortitude of cancer patients. There are some clear parallels between the pure determination cancer patients need to get through their treatments, and the lengths that entrepreneurs need to go to if they want to give their business venture a chance to ultimately succeed.

1. You don’t know how it’s going to end.

Once the diagnosis comes, a cancer patient doesn’t know how it is going to end: is it going to get you, or go into remission? Cancer has become an epidemic. Spend five minutes on the main floor of the Odette Cancer Centre at Sunnybrook, and you’ll quickly realize that thousands of families in your region are in the same boat.

Learning to become comfortable (perhaps resigned) with the unknown is forced upon the Cancer patient and their family, and it is the very thing that entrepreneurs probably never accept. But they should: you really don’t know how it’s going to end. Your business plan is a plan, not a guaranteed prediction.

Will your business succeed, or go bankrupt? Each are possible. Each has happened to others. Learn to get comfortable (at least as comfortable as you can) with both possibilities; it probably makes you more fearless.

2. Relying on your friends and family.

It is impossible to deal with cancer alone, and the first place to turn is your family and friends. Whether you need a drive to a radiation appointment or a “normal” lunch with a friend for a moment of distraction, your support network becomes incredibly valuable.

A start-up may begin with one person, or perhaps a couple, but it quickly spills over to the entrepreneurs’ family and network of friends. The hours a new venture requires are bottomless, and that time can only come from one place: your family. An entrepreneur never goes to bed with the day’s task list completely checked off, just as the cancer patient’s battle is never done just because the sun went down.

With cancer, you have no choice but to lean on people. It takes a village to put up a strong battle, and your friends and family make up very crucial elements of that village. Entrepreneurs should embrace that reality.

3. People look at you differently.

It is hard to put your finger on it, but acquaintances and people in general seem to look at cancer patients differently after a diagnosis. This isn’t something a cancer patient can do anything about, mind you, which might make it easier to brush off.

For a would-be entrepreneur or the early team members, the idea of working at a start-up will sound risky. To your family, your friends, and the credit card company.

Folks who work at large employers often have an incredibly strong link between their self-esteem and the name over the door of their workplace. You know what, you work at [IBM], but you’re not IBM — even the CEO for that matter. If your confidence and self worth are tied up in the employer’s brand, God help you when that should change. And it definitely will change eventually.

Just because people at a cocktail party haven’t heard of the firm you work at is no reason to second guess your decision. Or to avoind making the leap. Cancer patients and their families are in the same boat, since when someone asks: “how are you?”, and you respond honestly, it can be a bit of a conversation stopper.

4. Living with the unexpected.

Every day perhaps, and certainly every week, cancer patients find themselves facing new challenges, risks, symptoms, treatment options, academic papers…. Try as you might to get into a good place, there are forces outside your control. The “new normal” is the best way to describe it. Until that “new normal” changes again.

Enterpreneurs can’t help but appreciate this in theory, but it equally extends to the lives of the start-up crowd. Whether it be competitors, regulation, technological shift, patent issues, poaching of your key staff…. Most weeks won’t quite go as planned.

5. Trust, but verify.

Cancer patients put incredible faith in their medical teams. Some get 2nd or 3rd opinions. Others may do their own homework. There’s always the thought of combining Eastern medicine with the traditional Western approach. You try to do what feels right for you.

To get through the battle, a cancer patient and their family must trust the professional talents of the team. But that doesn’t mean they don’t verify the advice and recommendations that are being delivered. That they don’t challenge the battle plan being proposed to them. That other actions aren’t requested.

Entrepreneurs are good at many things, but there’s little doubt that it isn’t possible to be a pro at everything. Accounting, IP, finance, governance, cost of capital, marketing, HR. There are some key elements to setting and then driving a business on the right path. You can’t be an expert in all of them, which means you need to find some true experts to help you when the time comes.

Trust them. Verify that they’re advice is genuine, and that they are current in the field. But if you are able to find great advisors, you must trust them. They know better than you.

6. Big decisions require some reflection.

Cancer treatment can become transactional if you let it. Appointments become second nature. Being hooked up to a machine is the “job” for the day. A Specialist will then ask you to participate in a “study”, or hint that there’s a treatment available to you, but the actual decision about whether you have treatment “A” or “B” will be decided by a computer-generated coin flip.

“Would you like to proceed?” Please tell me now.

With three folks in lab coats standing in the examination room waiting for the answer, one undoubtedly feels pressure to make up your mind then and there. But you don’t have to. Big decisions require reflection. The Docs and Nurses will still be there tomorrow.

Entrepreneurs can easily be put in similar situations.

If you don’t hire this potential senior employee right now, they might be snapped up by another company. If you don’t exercise the option on your lease, the new space may be gone. If you don’t brief your Board on the new product, there might not be support for the funding required. If you don’t respond to the offer to merge with a similar firm, they might do a deal with someone else.

Some decisions are rudimentary. Normal course stuff. But others are big, and have repercussions that could have a dramatic affect on the future of your company. Learn to differentiate between the two, and don’t be embarrased if you want to sleep on a big decision. Even for more than a couple of nights.

It may well be that the path isn’t obvious, or that your stomache is telling you to do nothing right now…just stew. That in and of itself is a decision — to decide nothing right now.

Reflection is good, and comes too infrequently in the racing world of start-ups.

MRM
(With a toast to everyone out there who has been struck by cancer. Hopefully, your courage will drive a team of entrepreneurs somewhere in the world to develop better tools and treatments to help you and the next generation combat this dreadful disease.)