I love this quote from Thomas Edison.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison
As entrepreneurs we are going to make mistakes, we are going to have failures, not just once but many times. The true success of an entrepreneur is to accept the failures, learn from them and keep moving forward.
Imagine what our lives would be like if Thomas Edison stop on his first attempt to make a light bulb. Or if the Wright Brothers didn’t keep trying to fly. Where would we be today?
I’m learning to accept the business decisions that I made that haven’t turned out as I wanted them to. To be honest about what happened so that I can learn from them and make better decision in the future.
Do you (or did you) have a business “failure” holding you back? What have you learnt from it? How are you moving forward?
I love to see entrepreneurs follow their passions, serve more people and create the lifestyle of their dreams.
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This is my biggest problem accepting FAILURE!! I am gradually growing to the point where it won’t matter and my ego won’t hurt so bad due to failure. I remember getting a poor or lower than expected score on test or term papers in college. I talked with my professors and they encouraged me with their story making it through nursing school, “stating hey look at it this way Dalisse C means CONTINUE your not going to get an A on everything.” The more “NO’s” I get when presenting my business opportunity the closer I get to YES, YES, YES!!
Dalisse – You’ve pointed out where this fear of failure comes from, or at least it reinforced, the school system. I love the advice you got. C- means continue and you’re not going to always get A.
I was luck, I remember getting one of the worst marks on test – I think it was 10% or 12%, the class average was 30% so was a tough exam. I brought it home and told my mom and reaction was perfect. She laughed with me, she had fun confidence in my and it was only one test. I passed the course and was not stressed by small failures in school.
Hi Heather,
This is a great post and reminder about the part failure plays in success. As I stated before, I don’t Fail, I win or I learn. It’s not about how many times someone gets knocked down, it’s how many times do you stand up and try again? This is a great piece and reminder to say, “HOT DOG! I screwed up again – except this time it’s different!” 😉
Love it!!! “HOT DOG! I screwed up again – except this time it’s different!”
Hi Heather!
This is a great reminder that sometimes we just need to sit back and exhale. Woosah! 🙂
I’ve been coaching, training, and consulting aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners for well over 15 years now but I still have to catch myself from falling into the sea of frustrating challenges every now and again. I especially like that you mentioned the need to be “honest” and “learn” from mistakes so we can do a course correction. Timeless advice!
Niquenya – It is a great reminder. I’ve been in business for 10+ years and I can still fall in to the trap of letting something that didn’t go as planned stop me from trying again.
Hi Heather,
I love your blog – and I’m adding to the Blogs I follow listing! I too look at failure as a lesson learned that it’s not so much that there was a mistake made or a failure happen, it’s what you do with it. As long as you don’t stay down, you are not out. I can’t count the ways I’ve failed, I just keep moving forward. Great blog!
Tamara – Thank you – wonderful to have a new follower.
“As long as you don’t stay down, you are not out”. Great way of putting it and it bring a really image to my mind. It is all about getting up, learning and creating something better.
Thanks for join the conversation.
I love that quote by Thomas Edison. Such wise words. It’s all about MINDSET! And the good news is that we can change it, re-adjust it… if we want to. Instead of seeing what doesn’t work as a failure, it really empowers us to know that it was a learning curve. YUP! My view, and sticking to it! 🙂
Norma – Definitely a great view and worth sticking to. It is empowering to know that each thing we try, success or not is all part of the learning curve. So much is life is about mindset. The whole idea of failure starts with the idea of failing in school and then it grows and grows. Time to change that mindset.
it’s not so much failure that’s holding me back, it’s more – what IF I fail as a health/fit coach because I don’t look like bikini competitor or fitness model. (Although, really, I wouldn’t want to ever look like some of the extreme chicks who do bikini competition. I think they tend to look more manly when they lose all the fat.) I just need to remind myself that in order to succeed, I have to fail. I learn the lesson and move on. There’s a great book called Fail Forward – have you read it?
Hazel: I’ve never heard of the book Fail Forward, I’d definitely look it up. What a refreshing way to look at it. Just image the people who won’t get your help if stopped begin a health coach because of fear? I think failure is in the eye of the beholder and often our own eye is the most critical.
Thanks for your great comment.
Hazel – I LOVE that book! I have several from him. When I was starting out, I made soooo many mistakes; however, my mindset was that I never fail … I win or I learn. Keep it up – you will be fine. No successful person has ever been successful without first failing. It’s what you do with the mistake or failure that matters, just keep moving forward.
Tamara – Great comment I love: “I win or I learn” – Priceless advice.
Thank you Heather for the reminder that there is no such thing as Failure. To me failure is a lesson. if you have learned something, you have succeeded. Failure is an idea we have in our head that can paralyze us, stop us from finding the solution to a problem. But if we analyze the so-called ‘failure’, we can see where we might have gone wrong, and do things differently for different results.
Renee: “Failure is a lesson”. Great comment. It is, and yet so many people are paralyzed but the thought of failing and they are even more paralyzed if that failure is perceived to be “public”. It is a lesson, which truly has value when we see it that way.
Just like we wouldn’t appreciate the day without the night, we wouldn’t appreciate success without failure. Failure happens all the time, we burn our finger to know how to handle the fire, we kick the curb learning how to park, we offer our love at the danger of being rejected. In business, failure to some degree is a part of learning what Not to do. So as such, it is not really a failure, but a lesson learned.
Lillith – Great comment. It is a lesson learned, but so many business owners I meet are doing what they could be doing because they fear failure. It gets in their way. You’ve put it in a great way. Thanks for commenting.
I look at all of life as possibility, opportunity, & challenges. I don’t know the concept failure. Maybe something didn’t work out, but that is not failure.
Roslyn – The word would be a better place if everyone had your attitude. Image how many more people would step up to their potential. 🙂
It is so true Heather that until we try something and fail, we never know if something will work. It is about stepping into life and taking an action and being open to learn from it, however, it turns out. The great part of life is that there is always another day and another opportunity to begin again. Failure is one way to look at something that different turn out as planned. It is also possible to see it as a stepping stone to success.
Beverly: Well said. I love “The great part of life is that there is always another day and another opportunity to begin again.” It seems we build in the thought of failure in our school system, we pass or fail and that stress continues on for so many people.
Great input to the conversation.