Many nurse practitioner entrepreneurs who venture down the path of operating their own business and obtaining financial freedom believe that it will be easy streak, rainbows in the sky, care bears dancing, and a piece of cake. Well, let me tell you something: you will fail multiple times in many aspects of being a nurse practitioner entrepreneur.

Welcome to business and making a living for yourself.

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Thankfully, everyone does not do it so the few Elites out there that want to pursue entrepreneurism can. You need to have a thicker skin than most to succeed as a nurse practitioner entrepreneur. Why?

Because the road to success is paved with FAILURES.

That is right. No one, and I mean NO ONE who is a successful entrepreneur has done so without failing in multiple aspects of their business startup. We are talking about billionaires down to the person who owns an ice cream shop. Failures HAPPEN and it is what eventually makes you successful.

Failures LEAD to success!

So, before you begin venturing down this path or before you begin to scale your current business in any meaningful way, you need to ensure that you are OKAY with failures. You need to ensure that you can brush them off and keep going. When you fall, you need to have the ability to get back up.

If you can’t, then you will give up. You won’t fail because of the failures and mistakes you made. No no… It doesn’t work that way. You fail because you GAVE UP.

YOU MUST BE OKAY WITH THIS ASPECT OF STARTING YOUR OWN PRACTICE IF YOU WANT TO SUCCEED.

This is critically important.

Now, I am not trying to scare anyone. That is not the point of this article. The point is that I want my nurse practitioner sisters and brothers to be prepared for what WILL happen (not if it will happen). You need to expect failures during your nurse practitioner entrepreneurial journey. You will have countless speedbumps and roadblocks along the way. You will experience an emotional rollercoaster that you have never experienced before in your life.

Listen though, the failures aren’t going to be life ending okay? They are usually just an accumulation of small speedbumps and failed attempts with a couple big failures thrown into the mix.

You will not be going to go to jail.

You aren’t going to go bankrupt (unless you take out a massive amount of business debt… so DON’T!)

You aren’t going to kill patients.

You will not be living on the streets begging for money if you fail.

Chances are, you might be out a couple thousand dollars and waste some time. THAT IS IT.

But remember, you only totally fail when you give up. THAT is what the worst-case scenario truly is. If you give up, then the road will never be completely paved. You will never reach the end of that road and be successful. You MUST fail to succeed. That road MUST be paved with failures during your journey.

I couldn’t even tell you how many times I have failed during my entrepreneurial journey. Seriously, there are too many… I honestly think there were more failures than successes! But guess what? The successes were TRUE successes.

It is like fishing: you throw out hundreds of casts (failures) before you catch a fish (a success). But you must throw out thousands of casts (failures) before you catch the trophy (a TRUE success… the million-dollar idea folks!).

Failures that have led to successes that Justin has experienced:

Throwing away $5,000 on a failed radio ad campaign. Jeez, what a waste of money… But I would have never known this without trying. So, my marketing strategies are more dialed in now and they are successful.

Hiring the wrong staff. This led to successful hiring practices later.

Accepting insurance when I started my first practice ever (opioid addiction). But guess what? This failure showed me the light: CASH ONLY! That failure led to a BIG success!

Spending $10,000 advertising a telemedicine practice the month leading up to his opening. Guess what? A TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY. It seriously generated 2 patients… Successful outcomes though? I learned to never market a practice before it opens (a week MAX before you open) and I received a HUGE payout. Sure, I wasted money marketing the practice before it opened but a year later, I sold the practice for a HEALTHY profit. So, a big failure led to a big success!

Offering various services in my men’s health practice that my patients were not interested in. This will happen. You will offer new services in your practice and sometimes, no one is really interested in them. Big deal! I scrapped the idea and moved onto the next one. After 3 years of doing this, I have DIALED IN what my patients want and what they will pay for. So, a big success!

Writing countless articles on The Elite Nurse Practitioner and never receiving a like, comment, or a single engagement. A failure in my eyes, but guess what? A few articles have changed the lives of countless nurse practitioners. That my friends are BIG successes. I received an email the other day from a nurse practitioner that said I inspired her so much to start a business, that one year later she is 100% self-employed and that her family’s standard of living has changed significantly. That brought enormous joy to my heart.

Making some bad investments in the stock market and even real estate that ended up costing me a lot of money… It really hurts to make an investment and see it plummet in value. But you know what? That is just part of the risk of investing. Lesson learned. On the other side of the coin, I have made some killer investment decisions that offset the bad ones.

Those are just a handful of the many failures that have paved my road…

Remember, the road to success is paved with failures. You must fail to succeed. It is part of this journey. The key here is to NEVER give up. Giving up = ULTIMATE FAILURE. Getting back up = EVENTUAL SUCCESS. The nurse practitioners that get up are the ones that succeed. Unfortunately, too many throw in the towel and give up. Don’t do that. Your success will come, but it will come with the failures you must walk on.