Successful Failure

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Four Lessons I Have Learned from Failure Moments

Posted by John R. Stoiber on February 14, 2015
Posted in: Failure Lessons. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

Four Lessons from Failure

When you experience failure, and you will, it is not the failure itself that ultimately matters. What matters most is what you learned from the failure, and what action you took to overcome it.

As I reflect back on my own failure moments, a number of lessons come to mind that will remain with me for a lifetime.  While failure is truly relative and situational, these lessons will apply to anyone that has failed.  They serve as helpful reminders that make us stronger and more capable of handling whatever setbacks come our way in the future.

Here are four failure lessons that I have found particularly helpful:

1. Strength of Will:  A moment of failure is one where one’s “will” is tested.  Does failing deflate your desire or drive to achieve something, or does it fuel your fire even more to work harder, commit more energy, and push towards a goal?  If you are like me, you choose the latter.  You use the experience as motivation, you strengthen your will to succeed.  You get stronger, and move on from the failure more swiftly.

2. Refined Discipline:  Achievement, regardless of how big the goal, takes discipline.  The ability to control your behavior when faced with a variety of unexpected influences or temptations is critical to success.  Each failure makes you reflect on your discipline and think about how it might be refined to avoid the possibility of future failure.  How can you better handle the curve balls that come your way during the process of success?  Failing teaches us to be more disciplined in that process by helping us to know what works and what does not work.

3. Courage Trumps Fear:  For most people, failure moments only amplify the overarching fear that people have of failing.  When failure happens, it is easy for the fear of failure to increase.  Take the safe route.  Don’t make a mistake or it will hurt.  However, the lesson we learn from failure is that the more courage we have to overcome it and move on the less fear can creep into our heads and hold us back.  Courage is the slayer of fear.  Courage allows us to regroup, prioritize what is next, and continue on our success journey without fear of a repeat failure.

4. True Relationships Are Revealed:  You might wonder why I have included this one as it relates to failure lessons.  But, this is a big one in my view. When you are experiencing great success, it seems that your relationships also tend to grow and you naturally attract more people into your own professional and personal network.  However, when the chips are down, your “true” relationships are revealed by those that stand with you. Where does your encouragement come from, and who is by your side to quickly offer support (and sometimes defense) related to the failure?  Where are your true relationships?  If you really think you have a good relationship with someone, and you feel a sense of trust with that person, what happens in moments of failure will clearly show you how real and meaningful that relationship really is.  Trust me, it is enlightening and I encourage you to reflect on this regarding past failures. We as humans rely heavily on our relationships to feed our strength of will, to build our courage, and to hold us accountable for maintaining our stated discipline.  Having true relationships around you can make all the difference in handling failure.

 

3 Steps to Recover from Failure

Posted by John R. Stoiber on August 29, 2014
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What matters most is not the failure itself, but rather what you do AFTER a failure.

Here are 3 steps to recover from failure:

1. Think of failure as an outcome. Failure is a moment in time. It’s not a permanent state of being. Separate how you think about yourself from the outcome. Just because you experience failure does not mean that YOU are a failure. Having the right mindset is critical to recovering quickly from failure.

2. Resist negative chatter from others. If you fail, all kinds of people – naysayers and others close to you – will fill your head with things such as “I told you so” and “you should have never done that.” You MUST resist and tune out the negative chatter. It will offer zero help. Most of these people are trapped by their own fear of failure and are dying to welcome you to their club. Do not join them.

3. Move quickly on a new plan. While the failure is still top of mind, think (and write down) what you learned from the experience. Be objective, not emotional. Examine what you could have done differently. Then, immediately formulate a new plan and start to take action. Your failure moment will soon be in the rear view mirror.

 

Fail Successfully – Move Towards What Scares You

Posted by John R. Stoiber on January 26, 2014
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I recently attended a client event and heard a keynote speaker talk about what scares you, and the idea that if you move towards what scares you, you can achieve great things.   It’s a very interesting concept.   Have you ever faced a situation or decision in your life or career that was particularly scary? Did you decide to move towards the fear, or did you hesitate, stop or even go in a different direction?   Ever wonder why successful people seem to make things look so easy, as though they have never been afraid?    It is rarely what it seems.   Trust me.   Most successful people do get scared, but the key difference is they seem to find excitement and energy in being in that “scary place.”

I remember a time back in the late 1990’s when I became what some colleagues referred to as a “serial entrepreneur.”   I decided one day (maybe the sun was shining too brightly that day!) that I would leave a well-paying career in consulting and start my own business.  But I didn’t want to just start a typical company; I wanted to create something that would be what I called “world-changing.”  It had to be a big idea.  It would either be a huge success or a total failure.  There would be no place in between. That decision turned into a rollercoaster ride over many years, and many companies.

One of the businesses I started during the subsequent eight years was a social networking company.   This was in late 1999, and the social networking applications we now take for granted did not yet exist.   There were other start-ups out there, but LinkedIn, Friendster (whoa – anyone remember that?), and others didn’t enter the market until several years later.  I decided to put my chips on the table and go “all in” on this business, investing significant personal savings and 100% of my sweat equity on a 24/7 basis.

I will not lie… it was a scary proposition.

I had a partner working with me (another serial entrepreneur) who had moved to Silicon Valley, and we spent a majority of our time working our relationships and trying to raise money.   He used to tell me each morning that we had 0.00001% chance of raising the capital we needed to pull this off.   How inspiring!   But, we pressed on boldly.

I will spare you of the details on how this story ended, but I’ll bet you might assume it turned out much worse that I personally viewed it, and this was an extreme example.   The key takeaway for me was that although this experience was a scary one, I did not let that fear stand in the way of trying to achieve something I believed I could do.   While not everything turns out the way we want, if you are willing to move towards what scares you, you might be surprised at how many times it can lead to great success (or at least a successful failure)!  Frankly, you cannot be successful at anything sitting on the sidelines.

Next time you find yourself facing what scares you consider this – what’s the worst thing that could happen?  You might find that moving towards what scares you is really not that scary after all.