40 Tips To Re-Invent and Re-Launch at Age 40, 50, or Beyond. (Tip #11)
The world is ready for you to start fresh. But are you? Some people get scared of failure, and thus they fail to take the actions needed to start the process to re-invent. Change is possible, but it might come with some mistakes made along the way.
In fact you can count on stumbles. The most successful people I know have all blown it on occasion. But they did not define themselves by the mistakes, instead they got up and tried again (and again, and again, etc...)
My advice is to not be scared of failing. Expect it and embrace the bumbles as learning experiences. As I review the past 6+ years of working for myself I experienced some great business successes, but I have also flubbed up more times than I care to admit. Yet without saying or doing the wrong things from time to time I could not learn how to behave in successful ways that will bring me to the next level.
Failure is part of the journey. I have some entrepreneur friends who will sit around over a glass of wine and talk about their biggest bombs. While it is hard to tell your friends where you came up short, once you say it out loud it is no longer haunting you in your soul. Having a safe nest of friends who will not only listen but help you find the lessons in screwing up can be a great way to double the knowledge you can gain (from your failures and theirs).
When was the last time you made a big blunder? Have you buried it away or have you learned from it? Does it cause shame or pride when you think about it? I challenge you to move the mistake to the pride column (as long as you have made the adjustments necessary not to repeat it).
Honestly, this is easier said than done, as our society is full of those who are judgmental and who seek to make less of those who fail. Get away from these thoughts and seek out stories of those who failed along the way toward success. Harvey Mackay (one of my favorite business writers) wrote a New York Times Best Selling book in 2004 called "We Got Fired...and it's the best thing that ever happened to us". In this book he profiled some awesome examples of success and highlighted the failures that had occurred that led them to later being ready to achieve. Muhammad Ali, Bill Belichick, Michael Bloomberg, Lou Holtz, Larry King, Joe Torre, Jesse Ventura, and others are all profiled in the book.
Get over yourself and realize that we all are human.
Wanna talk about failure? Email me anytime.
Have A Great Day
thom singer
Great post Thom - I love Pete Cook's philosophy that he fails 50% of all projects he launches.... initially I found this tough and then I realized he was so right! It's liberating when you aren't so worried about failing - totally changed my mindset. I have failed in so many ways professionally and personally and during my corporate career I made a gazillion mistakes.
ReplyDeleteRecently I did a presentation that the client loved and I had fun but there were a few people in the audience who didn't love one of my stories - I realized it wasn't the right audience and that was a failure and so now I won't use that story again, I didn't enjoy reading the 3 comments about it, but they were so right and so we learn from our failures I think. It forces us to become stronger and better.