In a ham-and-egg breakfast, the chicken makes a contribution but the pig is committed, the old saw goes. Have you ever noticed that when failure is not an option for leaders—when they are really committed—they usually seem to figure out a way to succeed?

Like many entrepreneurs, Jim McCann, founder of 1-800-Flowers.com (FLWS), didn't make much money when he bought his first shop, a flower store he opened in 1976. McCain was a social worker at the time seeking to supplement his income. But he discovered he had a knack for business, and one shop became several.

Ten years later, when he learned about a company for sale that owned the rights to a name he believed had lots of potential, 1-800-Flowers, he quickly arranged to purchase the business, thinking he was ready for the big time. That perception changed when he discovered what bad shape the business was in, including some $7 million of debt he hadn't known about. "We had great motivation to make this idea work," he said of the time, "because if we didn't, we had just lost everything we had built over 10 years."