ENTREPRENEURSHIP
If You Want To Be Successful, You Just Need To Be Right Once™
People don’t see your failures, they only see your success. That is what most of the successful people will tell you about their journey whenever you ask them. Everyone tries their best to replicate success. We all want to be the next Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, or whatever successful person you can name here. In chasing success it can blind us from the fact that we must first (expect to) fail before we succeed.
I have recently watched an interview with Steve Harvey and Mark Cuban where his primary advice to anyone who is now starting on their journey is to learn how to deal with failure, because all you have to do to be successful, is to be right (at least) one time!
But what does it mean to fail? How does one fail? And if I’m failing right now, am I doing it right?
Failure, in this case, as described by most successful people means trying various things that don’t work. By trying these different approaches, if often leads to hard, valuable lessons that you can learn about what works and what does not work for you to get to your path of success.
The truth is, and what I feel like a lot of these successful people don’t tell you, is that it’s ok to fail but it’s also equally important that you learn from such failure. Learning from your mistakes is not easy, especially if you failed big. However, it is easy to identify what works and what did, and this is what where should take notes.
This is the advice I give to entrepreneurs and start-ups. Failure is an important step in the journey because failure means that you have taken a wrong step or approach and now you have to course-correct to find your path.
It is ok to fail! It’s just another step in the journey.
It is easy to say that it’s ok to fail, but let’s face it failing sucks! And no one wants to deal with that pain. It’s tough not hearing that you won, you made it, your product or service is not worth it. A lot of time we can tie this feeling to our self-worth, feeling like we are unaccomplished or not worthy. But that’s not always the case.
We must learn to deal with this. Whether that means seeking help, getting a friend or mentor, or expanding our knowledge on how to cope with such feelings, it is extremely important to understand that failure is just another step and like everything else, you will get over or recover from it.
So if failure is inevitable for success, then we should learn to get better at it, or at least how to manage it. Right?
Learning not to be stuck chasing failure
Sometimes, I see so many young entrepreneurs get stuck behind chasing a vision that may just work only to end up with their next failure. It may or may not be true that Albert Einstein said
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein
Whether or not you agree with that statement and its roots, we can all agree that the spirit of it still holds. And that’s an important point here. Learning not to be stuck in the cycle of repeating the same mistakes is the only way you can grow out of making them.
Learning to do post mortems
Before trying your next approach, you need to take account of what went wrong with your previous approach. A good way to deal with this is usually to write down your thoughts and gather them into categories of what worked, what didn’t work and why. This will give you great indicators for the next attempt.
Learning to micro-fail™
Ok, there may not be such a thing as micro-failing, but learning to fail in small doses is important. Way too often a lot of people see red flags about their approach going to the wall and yet they continue down the journey. Learning to recognize problems in your approach and finding early solutions will lead to more continued success in your current mission.
The Final Take-Away
Fail Fast, Fail Often. This is the mantra that is shared among entrepreneurs and startups. But failure does not have to be catastrophic.
Failure is important, as it teaches us important lessons about our path. But it’s also as important to learn from the mistakes and try to improve them.
