Success Isn’t About Having the Best or Most Original Idea — It’s About Resilience. Here’s How to Build It.

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My company, Jotform, was not an overnight success . I didn’t wake up one day to find myself the darling of TechCrunch or attract massive funding rounds from VCs ravenous to get in on the form-building action.

I probably don’t have to tell you that a form-builder is not the world’s sexiest basis for a startup. But that doesn’t bother me one bit. Jotform became successful not because it’s flashy, but because our products work. And I believe they work because my employees and I strive every day to create the best experience for our customers.

Here’s the truth: Success is not about having the best or most original idea. It’s about being resilient . In my case, it was about getting up with the birds and spending time every morning before my full-time job to work on my startup, even when it was cold and dark, and it would have been easier to stay in bed. It was about not quitting when a major tech behemoth released a product similar to the one I was launching. Resilience helped me press on, even when I felt like quitting.

Resilience is an internal fire that keeps glowing, even in adverse conditions. Some people are born with it; others develop it over time. Here’s how to build your own resilience , even if it doesn’t come naturally to you.

Related: 8 Ways Successful People Master Resilience

Stay calm

I’m a proponent of the practical philosophy of Stoicism , the goals of which, as described by the philosopher Epictetus, are “to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals, not under my control, and which have to do with the choice I actually control.”

As a founder, there are so many things you can’t control — the “externals.” Maybe you’ve lost a client, received a bad review or experienced data corruption. These things may feel like the end of the world, but they’re not. The sun will rise again tomorrow.

It’s normal to be upset over a setback, but fretting excessively will only keep you from focusing on the things you do have power over — the “internals.” A huge part of building resilience … Read More