Having been involved first-hand with a start-up which ended with a terrible crash, I’m all too familiar with the pain and humiliation of public failure. We worked hard for years and never took our success for granted. Back then we didn’t know enough to avoid some major pitfalls, but we knew enough to dig ourselves out of trouble more than once. Our final blow came with 9/11 when our biggest client lost $2M in travel business overnight, declared bankruptcy, and left us with a $400K bad debt. Ouch. We hung on for another six months, but eventually lost the battle.

It was one of the most painful experiences of my professional life. But it wasn’t until years later that I was given the perspective to understand what an incredible learning experience that was. To be honest, I wouldn’t trade that kind of knowledge for anything …

To me entrepreneurs, like athletes, are courageous and inspiring. How we fail is just as important as how we succeed.

Liu Xiang has a dignity about him that makes me think he’ll be OK eventually …… his mental torment at the moment must be huge.

Excellent post young Kevin ………