Surviving Failure (and a few Successes): The crushing experience of epic failure, followed by epic success, followed by...

By Merle Good

Surviving Failure (and a few Successes) is a bracingly honest book about the struggles of failure and of wild success. It is also a story of hard-won hope and endurance. Here, too, for the first time is the inside story of the off-the-charts publishing sensation, Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook. Good acknowledges the searing questions he faced in the dark times and in the moments of out-of-control success. Who can I trust—and who will trust me? When the false gossip is overwhelming, do I ignore it, or do my best to counter it? The author offers transferable survival tips, weaving in advice from well-known figures who experienced failure yet went on to live productively and positively.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Walnut Street Books
• Release date: May 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781947597082

Merle Good

Merle Good has written numerous books and articles about the Amish. Good is the founder of the publishing house Good Books. He is a playwright and novelist and lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. P. Buckley Moss (Pat) first met the Amish in 1965 when she and her family moved to Waynesboro in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Admiring the family values and work ethic of her new neighbors, Pat began to include the Amish in many of her paintings. She lives in Mathews, Virginia.

Book preview

years.

PART ONE

What Happened?

There are good days, even in the morgue.

CHAPTER ONE

Surviving the Darkest Hours

In July, 1996, after our company filed for Chapter 11 Reorganization, my wife and business partner, Phyllis, and I were devastated. In the year leading up to the crisis, we had tried everything we could think of to increase sales, cut expenses, and avoid catastrophe.

Neither of us had any experience with bankruptcy, so we had no idea what to expect next. But we knew it would be difficult, messy, and unpleasant.

It was. The only way to survive was to place one foot in front of the other.

We lived moment by moment. We took a legal pad and outlined each of those first days into 10-minute slots, carefully tracking what absolutely needed to be done during that time. Bankruptcy seemed less common in those days. I did not know of anyone who had gone through Chapter 11. It was all new, all terrifying, and completely humiliating.

One thing could not be denied. It was my failure. The company had been built around the vision and creative projects that Phyllis and I had developed together over the previous 26 years, ever since our company had been formed in 1970 (a few months after we had gotten married in August, 1969).

We had 50 shareholders and about 50 staff members in our various projects, including book publishing, an arts magazine, two outstanding museums, a ceramic gallery and a fine art gallery, various annual educational programs, a sandwich shop, and several retail shops and stores.

(From 1968 through 1977 we had operated a summer theater, producing 40 performances a year, most of them original plays—or dramas with music—that I had written. In 1973, we had also produced a nationally released movie, based on my novel, starring Academy-Award-winning actress Geraldine Page and the great actor Pat Hingle.)

But the crash landing in July 1996 was clearly my fault. Who else could be blamed?

Phyllis was amazingly tough. I, on the other hand, felt like shattered glass inside. I could hardly breathe, I was so distraught. For the first time in my life I sought the help of a psychiatrist, and the meds he prescribed definitely steadied me.

But it was war. Creditors came after us from every direction. Even though the court’s stay is designed to give the Debtor time to reorganize, creditors still tried to have us removed from the leadership of the company so they could take over our company’s assets. And it was understandable. People were frightened about losing their money and, just like politicians sometimes do, they stirred up fear and spared no efforts in ridiculing me. Some publicly talked down the value of our company’s assets with the hope of buying them at a fraction of their value.

In the middle of this constant day-to-day battle for survival, Phyllis and I needed to find a way to not be swept away with the overwhelming sense of instability and loss. I can understand why so many persons in similar circumstances resort to walking away from the whole situation rather than trying to stay at the helm and deal with the daily hand-to-hand combat and anger.

In those fatal days when Phyllis and I were beginning to realize that we needed to file for Chapter 11 in order to reorganize, to save as much of the creditors’ money as possible, I made two commitments.

First, I would make myself as big a target as possible in order to protect staff, managers, the board of directors, and family members. If there was any chance of our company surviving, I needed to shield those around us by drawing as much of the venom and blame to myself as possible, even if others may have been partly responsible.

I was determined to see if we could save our company (about $4 million in annual sales) and return as much money to our creditors as possible.

(A short primer here—Chapter 11 is when the owners of a company try to reorganize that company and its assets based on a detailed Plan of Reorganization, which the creditors and court must approve. If successful, the company can continue, under certain restrictions. A vast majority of companies that go into Chapter 11 never emerge from it and are liquidated. Chapter 7 under the Bankruptcy Code is when a company files for liquidation, with no chance of survival, and the court appoints a trustee to oversee said liquidation.)

So back to my first goal—I wanted to give shelter to all of the people around me (staff, managers, board, and family) so that, if we were able to get a Plan of Reorganization approved, our company could continue, return as much money to the creditors as possible, and save as many of our staff’s jobs as we could. How to do this? One major factor would be for me to draw as much of the scathing criticism and anger to myself as possible.

Privately I told the Chair of our Board that I wanted him to understand the decision I had made. If I was personally attacked in the press, in some mass mailing from a creditor, or in some public meeting, I would probably not respond. I would, for the most part, not defend myself against all of the vicious things being said about me personally. Not because they were true, but because defending myself was not the most important urgency. But if the assets of the company were attacked or misrepresented (such as that real estate is really not worth much or those publishing assets have no value), I would speak up and defend those assets. My goal was for our small company to come out the other end of this and to pay off as many of our debts as possible.

LUCY: YOU LEARN MORE WHEN YOU LOSE.

CHARLIE BROWN: WELL THEN, I MUST BE THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

—CHARLES M. SCHULZ

Secondly, I wanted to do everything we could to protect our two daughters, one entering her second year in college and the younger one entering her senior year in high school. God knows, they had done nothing to deserve this poisonous atmosphere.

In truth, they were the two best daughters any father could imagine having—thoughtful, industrious, creative, funny, respectful, and conscientious. Phyllis and I always tried not to brag about them but, in fact, we felt so fortunate that God had given us these two wonderful beings who were so loving and from whom we learned so much.

I wanted to do whatever I could to shield them from the ferocious storm. The first thing we did was to change our home phone to an unlisted number, so they would not be answering our phone (before widespread use of cell phones) and hearing threatening and mean-spirited messages. Some creditors put out the word that this proved that we were hiding from accountability. But enduring such untrue accusations was a small price to pay for a safe space for the four of us. In large part, I think our daughters would agree that our home became a safe place for our family during that excruciating time.

When something so crushing descends on you, you can barely breathe, barely sleep, barely put one foot in front of the other. But staff are depending on you, decisions need to be made, and a Plan of Reorganization needs to be developed in a hostile environment.

How to go on?

Phyllis and I developed a ritual of repeating four sayings out loud to each other every day. This routine became pivotal to our making it through those terrible days.

I share them here, hoping that perhaps in whatever situation you find yourself, these four sayings may be helpful, maybe even comforting.

1. We did what we could.

In our case, we felt that way. We had done what we could, even though it was not enough. Not that we didn’t make mistakes along the way. We did. But, in general, in hindsight, we honestly believed that we had given the situation 200% of our best energies, insights, and toughness.

Maybe we should never have tried to cobble together a series of arts-related projects into a business. That decision, made two and a half decades earlier, may have been the cardinal mistake.

But in 1996, things being as they were at that time, we could honestly look each other in the eyes and say, We did what we could. And repeating that to each other every day became a lifeline of sanity.

Not that it was enough. We did fail. No hiding that. But there was at least some comfort and perspective in knowing we had done our best under difficult circumstances. Others may disagree, but in our own heart of hearts, we believed that our failure was not the result of neglect or lack of effort. Repeating that phrase each day anchored us in a bit of reality and honesty. We did what we could.

2. There are good days, even in the morgue.

Sounds disturbed and a bit macabre?

Maybe. But think about it. Could I work in the morgue if it was the only way to survive, to make enough income for food? Probably. Though I’d like to explore at least a hundred other jobs before I’d agree.

If I had no choice and ended up spending my days in the morgue, would each day be the worst? Would there be no redeemable moments? Would there be no sense of accomplishment, no flicker of the living among this work with the dead, no smile or moment of humor?

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.

—Denis Waitley

What Phyllis and I experienced in those days many times felt worse than death. And one ritual that helped us to survive was to remind each other to be alert every day for a sliver of hope, a tiny ray of sunshine in the middle of a life that seemed reduced to gruesome humiliation