START AGAIN WITHOUT STARTING OVER
You’re Not Back At Zero
3-Minute Read
Starting again isn’t failure. It’s proof you’re still in the arena.
For anything substantial, the hardest and slowest part of growth is the beginning. I call it the underground work. It’s everything that must be established before you ever get to ground level.
This is as true for businesses as it is for buildings, relationships, and plants. The deeper and wider the foundation, the stronger the result. Higher. Bigger. More enduring.
Once an endeavor reaches ground level, growth is comparatively fast and easy. Notice that.
When disaster strikes and everything visible is destroyed, as long as the foundation remains, starting again is not starting back at the beginning. It is starting at ground level, which is far more advanced; it’s the fast and easy part.
Consider your underground work, your roots, your foundation.
This issue of The Grip is a reminder. If the foundation remains, you are not starting over. You are starting again with experience, with depth, with a stronger inner base, and with more precision for what comes next.
Mission-driven leadership isn’t protected from resets. It’s defined by how you meet them.
Let’s dive in.
starting from the foundation
Steve Jobs’ Reinvention
In 1985, Steve Jobs got forced out of Apple, the company he helped bring to life. Not gently. Not ceremonially. One minute he was the face of a revolution, the next he was treated like a problem that needed removing. He didn’t just lose a job. He lost his identity in public.
But what followed is why this story matters to you.
Jobs didn’t restart as a beginner. He started again with a foundation firmly intact: taste, relationships, battle scars, and a ruthless education in what leadership costs. He built NeXT and poured his obsession for elegant design into it. Years later, Apple would build macOS on what NeXT created.
Then Pixar. Jobs bought a small computer-graphics operation and backed it for years. Growing it was expensive, uncertain, and long. Then in 1995, Pixar released Toy Story, the first fully computer-animated feature film, and the “overnight success” suddenly looked inevitable from the outside.
In 1996, Apple acquired NeXT, which pulled Jobs back into the ecosystem that once expelled him. Apple needed what he had built in the wake of his ousting. The era that followed became one of the most consequential rebounds in modern business.
Steve Jobs’ next chapter wasn’t a reversal. It was a return to ground level, with more strength, more clarity, more range.
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Thomas Edison’s Fresh Start
In 1914, Edison’s West Orange lab complex caught fire, destroying 10 buildings and years of work.
Edison was 67. He stood there watching decades burn, and then delivered a line that still hits like steel: “I am 67, but I’m not too old to make a fresh start.” In family accounts, he told his son, “It’s all right. We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish.”
Through that loss, Edison didn’t lose his mind or his craft. He didn’t lose his capacity to create. He began rebuilding the very next day, with operations resuming within weeks. A year later, Edison’s lab was more productive than ever.
If the foundation remains, you’re not starting over at the beginning. You’re starting with experience, wisdom, and skill. What remains matters most.
“Starting at ground level is far more advanced. It’s the fast and easy part.”
Loss pulls your eyes to what’s gone. Don’t live there. Train your eyes to see what remains. It’s waiting to be leveraged and put to use. You are further along than your present conditions may suggest.
Ask yourself:
Where am I treating starting again like failure, instead of leverage?
What underground work have I already done that I’m discounting?
What part of my foundation got stronger because I got cut loose?
If everything visible burned down tomorrow, what would still be true about me?
If success were guaranteed, would I start again no matter how many times I fail?
Starting again isn’t regression. It’s leadership.
Keep creating.
key takeaways
A reset can destroy what’s visible without touching what’s real. Your intact foundation matters; it’s your springboard.
Starting again is often more advanced than starting over. You rebuild with range, not raw hope.
Mission-driven leadership is defined by how you meet resets. Established depth generates precision and momentum.
WORK 1:1 WITH BECKY
As a self-mastery coach, I help mission-driven founders accelerate desired results without sacrificing what matters. If that sounds like good news, REACH OUT to experience how 1:1 coaching can empower you to be the masterful leader your mission requires.
May you prosper in every way!
Becky & TPL Team
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