This Isn’t a Dress Rehearsal — Run Your Business Like You Only Get One Take. Here’s How.

I’ve already written about meeting Steve Forbes, but I keep coming back to the advice he gave me that day: “This isn’t a dress rehearsal.”

For those who haven’t read that other article, he was responding to a question I’ve asked many ultra-successful people over the years: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? And of all the answers I’ve received, this one has had the greatest impact on my life. But what does it really mean?

At first, this advice might sound like a cliché; another version of carpe diem exhorting us to live in the moment. And while that’s certainly good advice, it’s not terribly specific to running a business.

That’s what makes the dress rehearsal metaphor more useful for leaders. It takes a familiar idea and forces you to apply it to real decisions about time, risk and what you choose to pursue. Here’s how.

Running a company means your audience is always watching

A rehearsal has one specific purpose: It gives you the freedom to screw up when nobody’s watching. Even if you happen to be a Broadway actor, an opera singer at the Met or a Grammy-winning artist with a whole support team around you, a mistake made during rehearsal is hidden from the public.

In rehearsal, you can stop the show. You can go back and do things differently. If you really need to, you can step off the stage midway through a scene or song and take a break to calm your nerves.

On opening night, these options are off the table. The seats are full. The show goes on. Everything you do from that point forward is noticed, interpreted and remembered.

Performing a show resembles reality a lot more than rehearsing one. You’re going to spend most of your life doing things you can’t take back, and that people will remember. That also holds true if you’re running a business. You’re publicly tied to your company’s successes and failures, and people — including employees, customers and peers — are assessing how you handle both.

I learned that lesson in my early days as CEO at PhoneBurner, when a loosely worded FCC notice briefly resulted in a loss of carrier coverage for our dialing platform. Although I managed to find a solution within days, it was one of the highest-stakes moments of my career. I was acutely aware that our clients and team were depending on me, and that my response would make or break their faith in my leadership and our product. You can see the outcome of that event in this article.

Risk is a natural part of every successful performance

Seen this way, business leadership may sound very scary. At times, it can be. But so is singing in front of a packed theatre. If there were no element of risk involved with either of those activities, they would be less meaningful to people.

As humans, we’re impressed by novelty, and we’re impressed by achievement. Risk is a necessary precondition of both: You can’t do anything new or noteworthy if you don’t put yourself out there in spite of the possibility of failure.

Think about it: Every live performance is new because it can never happen exactly the same way twice, even if it’s a song or a play you’ve done hundreds of times. The same is true when you’re starting a new company or releasing a new feature. Experience helps, but the circumstances are always a little different; there’s always a chance that something goes wrong. You have to do it anyway if you want to succeed.

At the same time, you also can’t spend your career repeating the same performance. Most Broadway musicals only run for six months to a year because audiences move on. That’s why performers find new stories to tell. And it’s why businesses evolve and innovate to avoid losing customers to competitors.

You pay the opportunity cost whether or not you succeed (so you might as well try)

Consider everything that goes into putting on a show. From writing the original material to hiring talent, rehearsal, production design, venue procurement, advertising and day-of operations, the investment required when all is said and done can be astronomical.

That can create a lot of pressure. Sometimes it’s enough to convince people to quit before opening night.

But even a performance that doesn’t go as planned has value. It still allows performers to showcase their talents, generates real feedback and delivers valuable lessons for future endeavors. And although it may not fully recoup its expenses, it can still make back some of them or spawn the next opportunity. A performance that gets cancelled before opening accomplishes none of these things.

The same is true in business. If you’ve spent the hours, hired the team or committed the capital, walking away before launch isn’t the safe bet anymore. You might not make back your whole investment, but not launching guarantees an ROI of zero. Even a launch that underperforms provides clarity, momentum and direction.

Dress rehearsals matter, but you can’t live life like one. Real progress requires risk, discomfort and a willingness to move forward even when success looks like a long shot. You can only reap the rewards, whether hard-earned wins or hard-learned lessons, by taking the risk of sharing your work with others.

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