We’ve all been there. It has either made us want to quit, consider it and oscillated in between. It’s the dreaded “F” word that sometimes it feels there’s no coming back from. The worst thing is it not only impacts us but it can leave us feeling awful in front of witnesses such as family, friends, co-workers, and peers. Failure, the word we hate to utter, but we can’t avoid.
This month I want to take the sting and stigma out of the word. Personal branding is all about discovering that YOU have the power to dictate how others see and experience you because you get to define it. This month I encourage all of us to “re-frame” how we see such an often negatively viewed word. As I stated in my last newsletter, how we process failure is connected to the “emotional intelligence” of our Personal Brand. Our emotional intelligence plays a HUGE part in our lives and how we move forward professionally. Failing to process “Failure” right can leave us passing up on great opportunities due to fear or intimidation. It can leave us in a state of paralysis or indecision. We’ve got to nip this “Fear of Failure” thing in the bud so it won’t hinder our professional progress. Remember your Mindset dictates the thoughts and actions you develop and follow.
Well, we know trying to avoid Failure is futile so we should start looking at ways in which we can learn from it. One such way to make failure work more for you is to look at it as “Feedback”. As professionals, feedback can teach us a lot of helpful lessons, help us optimize our processes and in the end be better than we started. A “failed” sales campaign can teach us how NOT to do the task and oftentimes stirs up our creativity and resourcefulness in ways it hadn’t before we were challenged by such a blow. I’m not saying that our failures aren’t painful. Lord knows I’ve had my share and some I’ll likely never fully get over. But I’m here to say that we can leverage that pain and do something constructive with it by looking at FAILURE AS FEEDBACK. I love the quote by Idowu Koyenikan which states “Failure is constructive feedback that tells you to try a different approach to accomplish what you want. At the end, someone or something always gives up. It is either you give up and quit or the obstacle or failure gives up and makes way for your success to come through “.
So I’m excited that this month we will tap into the complexities of failure and all of us will emerge with a stronger resolve and game plan concerning it. We’ll look at how it changes us, how admitting failure isn’t the same as admitting defeat and how to create a new perspective centered around it. Our Theme for this month is “From Failure to Comeback”. If you’ve found yourself in a slump or traumatized from a failure from your past recent past we are going to work through that thing. Trust me I understand I spent many of my younger years stuck in that cycle so I’m skilled at pulling people out of those murky waters (smile). We want August to be the month that we push past the pain & fear of failure into a stronger resolve and higher goals. Let’s “flip the script on failure”! Don’t forget, this month I’ll be launching my Webshow/Podcast “20 Failures a Day”. Be on the lookout for my GIVEAWAY!
