James M. Sweeney is a serial entrepreneur who started 14 healthcare companies with original ideas, none of which have failed. He has raised $2 billion in capital and generated more than $30 billion in exit value. His companies have saved or extended the lives of millions of people. 

Rhonda Lauritzen is a biographer and speaker at international conferences. She has an MBA, served as a corporate CEO and college vice president and is the founder of Evalogue.Life. She believes that when you tell your story, it changes the ending. This is an excerpt from the recently published book “Creative Insecurity: Lean Into the Unknown and Unleash Your Inner Misfit,” co-authored by Sweeney and Lauritzen. 

I well remember the day of my biggest failure as a young professional. A secretary led me down a hallway dubbed “mahogany row” because it housed the executive suites. I entered the CEO’s palatial office with a huge desk, private patio and settee area. My boss was the VP of Marketing, and he was already waiting with the president and other executives. I felt nervous and excited to make my presentation. McGaw manufactured IV solutions, and I had taken a job there as Marketing Director following about a decade with various healthcare companies.

The executives listened as I told them I had spent time in the top-notch Cleveland Clinic, where we provided IV solutions for patients who had to receive all their nutrition through a feeding tube. They had a terrible quality of life chained to the hospital. It was miserable for them, and patients had poor outcomes. Then, a lightbulb turned on for me: “We could treat these patients at home.”

It was a revolutionary idea, and I knew it could work. We could provide all the supplies for patients to administer their own IV solutions. My pitch was impassioned, but the executives shifted in their seats.

One spoke aloud what the others seemed to be thinking: “Patients could never do something so dangerous, and the hospital would never sign off on it. They’d be too afraid of getting sued.”

I was emphatic as I responded to their objections.

“Every part of this equation makes sense,” I said. I knew it could work.

As the management team dismissed me, I could see they had already rejected the idea. Their formal answer to my proposal followed swiftly. Not only did they decline the opportunity, but they also wrapped their reply to me in a pink slip. I was not a fit for their organization.

That was my first and greatest failure up to that point in my life. But it turned out to be the most freeing event, too.

I had climbed the ladder quickly but was a square peg in a round hole within a corporate culture. Although I got along well with colleagues, they often didn’t know what to make of me. I wasn’t contrary on purpose, but I couldn’t help but see the world differently.

Getting fired left me untethered to pursue my idea. That idea became the seed for Caremark, a company that would first pioneer the high-tech home healthcare industry. It was a revolutionary concept that saved money at every level and kept patients out of hospitals.

Caremark would be my first entrepreneurial venture of more than a dozen during my career. These healthcare companies collectively created billions of dollars in value for shareholders, resulting in tremendous efficiencies. But most importantly, they saved or extended patient lives in immeasurable ways. Years later, I acquired McGaw and ended up occupying the office of the executive who had fired me.

Why am I telling you this story? Every week, I talk with entrepreneurs and rising young professionals who feel restless where they are. They often tell me they feel like misfits. They see what others do not and have ideas that might change the world.

As my career has shifted from serial entrepreneurship to coaching others with their startups, I’ve studied differences between those who succeed and those who self-destruct. More than any other trait, I see people break through their barriers by embracing positive insecurity rather than succumbing to the paralyzing effects of negative insecurity.

While most people think of insecurity as bad, it has both positive and negative effects. The choice is yours to lean into creative insecurity as a powerful growth catalyst or let fear-based overcorrections become a destructive force in your life.

But if the word “insecurity” makes you feel squeamish, you are not alone. The Oxford Dictionary definition carries negative connotations, including anxiety, a lack of confidence and a feeling of being open to danger.

Let’s focus on one word of the formal definition, which is neutral and not necessarily negative.

That word is: uncertainty.

Simply put, we feel insecure when a situation or outcome is uncertain. You might just as readily feel excited about an unknown outcome as you might feel anxious.

What makes you feel insecure today, right now, as you are reading this? You might feel unsure about the future or whether your abilities will measure up to a challenge. Imposter syndrome plagues nearly everyone. You may feel like a misfit, out of place in your current environment. Perhaps you must respond to threats coming your way.

You are not necessarily overreacting if you feel anxious in uncertain situations. The reason the unknown feels uncomfortable is because we are biologically programmed to avoid risk. You stay alive by listening to your body’s warning signs that you are in peril. These internal signals get your attention, not only about physical danger, but in social situations as well.

It is possible and healthy to develop creative responses to the inherent insecurity in life. You have a choice of what to do when faced with uncertainty. A positive approach is to be curious, open to improvisation and ready to learn. It is an alert state of being, not a fearful one.

If you are having difficulty wrapping your head around positive insecurity, begin by looking for examples in your life. Can you think of a time when you felt the thrill of a new beginning? If so, you have experienced positive insecurity. The exhilaration of new love, starting a job or kicking off a project are all times of uncertainty that bear the markers of hopeful excitement.

Curiosity is another potent form of creative insecurity. The discovery process is invaluable because it reveals more knowledge. While setting out for the unknown might be scary, curiosity can motivate us to push through our fears.

And if you enjoy the learning process, then you already know one of life’s great truths: Humans are most fulfilled when we feel challenged.

It’s funny because we tend to expect that we will feel happy after accomplishing an ambitious goal, but the opposite is often true. There are plenty of examples which show we are more engaged when we struggle upward compared to times of ease.

The takeaway? Don’t get comfortable. An easy life will leave you emotionally dissatisfied without knowing why.

I know you can learn to embrace insecurity, leverage imposter syndrome to your benefit and build strengths in the areas of vision, indefatigability and humility. You can lean into the unknown and fail your way to success. C&IT