“Daddy, I’m not sure if I can climb that.”

In a single almost Yoda-like moment at the park today my daughter rekindled all the memories of failures and successes, long nights, and the drama of the entrepreneur hustle.

My daughter looked upward at this strange spiral railing leading up to the top of the playground. I could probably touch the top with my hands but for a four-year old it appeared to be an impossible height. She assessed the situation, and declared she was going to make the attempt but acknowledging the fact that she might fail or she might even fall.

I realized then, that this was the pivotal moment when a challenge forms in front of you, and in a startup, perhaps even 90 days into what you thought you were building but in fact was something else… that was the kind of moment that I live for now.

I’ve failed a lot. And I will keep failing. And hopefully succeeding more often and at greater magnitudes.

I’ve earned my success and failures equally. Early in my journey, I saw my real estate business generating millions trickle to nothing at the end of the bubble. Later on somewhat dejected but still eager, I started my first promising technology product with $100K seed investment but was so conservative in marketing and product development that I ran out of runway in little over a year.

I wasn’t sure that I had the right stuff in me to be an entrepreneur anymore, but was eventually convinced to join another fantastic group of cofounders on a venture that we were able to grow to 100 employees without any debt or venture capital. Each time, I was never sure I could do it, but in the end it never stopped me from waking up to try again the next day, attempting the seemingly impossible and believing in myself.

At Fattmerchant, we have been disrupting the entire credit card processing and merchant services industry from pricing to service. However, we’ve set our sights on doing a lot more for small businesses to help them streamline payments and grow. There are some big mountains to climb to hit our milestones for this year and beyond including the upcoming launch of our mobile payment solution.

While we’re experiencing a lot of success with saving our customers money through our subscription model at Fattmerchant, our ultimate goal is still bigger and scarier than what we initially set out to do. We’re not sure we can achieve everything that we want to, but I’m sure we’ll find out!

Even more importantly, I’ve finally learned to enjoy the journey. In my mid-twenties pre-kids, a lot of my thought processes revolved around maintaining a certain image and constantly positioning myself for greater opportunity. Now with children and having time to see other careers develop around me, I know that the only image that’s important is the one I have about myself. Opportunities appear all around, but it’s not about being aggressive and placing yourself in front of everyone. It’s much better having a keen eye and sense of mind to assess the right opportunities.

My children at one and four years old have taught me more about life than I’ve taught them. I truly hope I can return the favor someday.

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