Tests, allies and enemies: when they say it can't be done

A meeting table. On the other side, the partners. The idea on the table is his: bringing touchscreen technology into the business he helped build.

The answer does not come from outside. It comes from within. The partners push him out of the business, and the idea stays with them.

He walks out the door empty-handed, with a pain that doesn't fit in a wallet. Some defeats cost money. This one cost something else.

What this stage is

In Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey (1949), organized into twelve stages by Christopher Vogler, the sixth stage is called tests, allies and enemies.

After crossing the threshold, the hero enters a new world and has to learn its rules. A sequence of tests follows, some small, others hard. This is where they discover whom they can trust, who gets in the way and, above all, who they themselves are under pressure.

Vogler notes that this stage is usually long. It is not one test: it is a whole season of attempts. And not every enemy is a villain. Sometimes it is a market that isn't ready yet, a partnership that goes wrong, your own haste.

In Bairo's life

Bairo's season of tests lasted years, and it came in waves.

The first test was arriving too early. He wanted to bring artificial intelligence and augmented reality into the business. People said it wouldn't work. He believed in the idea and, even believing, gave up. Years later, the very same thing became a trend. Seen from afar, that is called vision. Lived up close, you learn that arriving too early also means arriving alone.

The second test was staying in the water. Bairo moved to the city where his daughter was born and began producing cosmetics under his own natural-based brand. Once again, people said it wouldn't work. It did. And, years later, natural cosmetics became a trend. It was the second time he got there before the wave, and the first time he stayed in the water.

The third test was the partners. The touchscreen idea, the door closed from the inside, the exit without his own creation.

That was when Bairo made a discovery he still carries today. He found the pain and, instead of running from it, made it his foundation. Not as an open wound. As ground to stand on. And, deep down, he knew something he had not yet said out loud: every no is the ground of a yes.

Every closed door had left something in his hands. The course left method. The idea that came too early left an eye for the future. The brand left proof that he could create from nothing. And the partners left the most expensive lesson of all: choosing whom you build with.

The allies of this phase were few and quiet: his partner, his daughter as a reason, his own stubbornness. He didn't wait for the wound to close. He went to work in events and digital printing, reinvented himself once more and built up capital.

In your life

This is the stage where many people give up, because they mistake a test for a verdict.

If you are an entrepreneur who went broke, you may already have heard "this won't work" from a bank, from family, from an investor. If you are an immigrant, you may also have heard "that's not how it works here" or "this isn't for people like you." If you are starting over, perhaps the voice that says "it can't be done" most often is your own.

Questions to read your tests:

• Of the "nos" you heard, which were about the idea, which were about the timing, and which were only the fear of the person who said them?
• What idea did you abandon and later see someone else carry out? What does that say about your eye?
• Who are your real allies today, the ones who stay when things go wrong?
• Which partnership do you need to protect yourself from before you start?

Three steps for this week

1. Map your nos. List every important "no" in your life and write beside it what it left in your hands: a lesson, a skill, a person. Notice how many became bricks.
2. Protect your next ideas. Before entering a partnership, put everything in writing: who brings what, who decides what, what happens if someone leaves. A simple contract, reviewed by a lawyer or by a university's free legal aid clinic, spares you the pain Bairo knew.
3. Choose an ally and look after them. One person who was with you at your worst moment. Thank them, ask how they are, offer something. An ally is not a contact: it is a relationship.

There is no journey without tests. What changes is what you do with what each one leaves in your hands.

The line for this stage

"Every no is the ground of a yes."

Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez

Next stage

Stage 7: Approach to the inmost cave, when the opportunity is a trap

Read also

• Every no is the ground of a yes
• Bairo's Hero's Journey, stage by stage
• How to deal with professional failure?