No Matter What

A blogger I follow announced over the weekend that her husband has quit a secure job to work full time at a start-up. Financing is in place, and they’re as certain as they can be that their product will be a winner. There was a nervous joke about unleashing themselves from the golden handcuffs, the requisite declaration of her pride in her husband, and as her giddiness began to sound so familiar I started to smile a bit, this statement made my heart lurch:

“I know he’ll be successful no matter what.”

Because that’s what you have to believe as a wife. There is no other choice. If you didn’t wholeheartedly believe that good things will come of this leap, how could you get behind it? Why would anyone do it? But. But … if the unthinkable does happen, he’ll still be successful, because he took the chance, right?

What “he’ll be successful no matter what” really means is that it’ll all work out. Sure, there will be a few bumps in the road  – just enough to add drama, to make the story so exciting when it’s told at gatherings. “Wow,” they’ll say, shaking their heads in astonishment. “They really came close to losing the business!” And then envy will gnaw at them just a bit as they wished they had the balls to strike out on their own, too.

But, seriously, what if the unthinkable happens? What if there is no excitement or glory or heroic close calls? What if there is sufficient funding, a no-fail business model and partners who work 90-hour work weeks, it’s all going according to plan, and NONE of it seems to have any power to stanch the bleeding of both decreased traffic coming in the doors and money going out? What if you are the best and the smartest and you’re willing to work nonstop to fill in the gaps and it still isn’t enough?

It will be fine, though, right? Because YOU TRIED! You gave it your all, your wife and children cheering you on at home, and hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Isn’t that the way it goes? The bad-ass pride that you and everyone who knows you will be so overflowing that EVEN IF the unthinkable happens, it will cushion your blow and you will land on your feet in such a seamless, without-missing-a-beat manner that whatever situation you land in next will be EVEN BETTER than the original venture and THERE will be your reward! That the sheer act of risk is rewarded richly by the universe is a truth we all hold, even though there’s no guarantee.

Because that’s the thing about managing risk. You can take all the precautions you can possibly anticipate, and it’s still not manageable. Risk is a runaway train, a roaring avalanche. It doesn’t care about your research or preparation or willingness to work day and night.

Believing one can manage risk is a necessary lie, though. If you didn’t believe it, you’d never jump. And the examples of brave men and women who jumped and succeeded get so much attention and so much of our admiration, that the stories of those who failed are never heard.

Or worse, when they are heard, they’re dismissed. They weren’t as smart as they thought; they didn’t work hard enough; there was a big, gaping flaw in their business plan. They plain old didn’t want it enough. They weren’t deserving.

And what’s a wife to do in that situation? How long can you be proud and supportive nomatterwhat while everything you’ve earned is drained away? You think that after the checking and savings and retirement and maybe even the house is gone that you’ll still be OK because you’ll still have each other, but that’s not exactly true. Because you won’t be the same people you were before the nightmare. The disappointment your husband feels because he can’t provide financially for his wife will extend to other areas, and soon he just won’t be there. Being the family cheerleader won’t bring you satisfaction any more, either, because the thing you were cheering for has taken everything. Your faith in everything will be gone.

My husband opened a restaurant last year, a few months before the economy began to tank. It was a dream of both of ours. We had built a very nice life for ourselves, which we left behind to take this huge risk. We were showered with praise and envy and “fucking awesomes!” before we moved. Everyone – us included – was certain that risk = reward, that the good life was guaranteed. There are no guarantees.

His restaurant might pull through. It might be able to withstand the economic conditions. It might be able to give us a paycheck at some point. I suppose that’s what being an entrepreneur is all about. But I’ve lost too much and wouldn’t do it again if I had the choice.

So the next time you see Suze Orman sit her fat, comfortable ass next to Oprah’s even more comfortable ass and tell America the first thing they need to do is to stop going out to eat, think about the people who take that advice, assuming it applies to local, independent places, but dear God, don’t take my Applebee’s away. Think about the waitresses who will no longer take tips home to their families, the dishwashers who aren’t qualified to do much else, the sous chefs who turned down other jobs to stick with this one. And my husband, the smartest, hardest-working man I’ve ever known. The guy whose wife really, really thought he was going to succeed.

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