Avoiding Failure is Too Much Work

I like simple. Easy. Straight-forward. I don't like to over-think stuff.  So when it comes to chasing the perfect "success" - which requires detailed planning, perfect execution, and no room for error... it all just seems like too much work. I'd never start. And if I did, what are my guarantees? It could take forever!

I much rather enjoy trying stuff as fast as I can, making changes, learning, and then trying again. In some cases, failing over and over and eventually hitting success, in other cases - letting go and trying something else. One of Richard and my heroes is leadership and management "guru" Tom Peters. Tom has said, "Whoever Tries The Most Stuff And Screws The Most Stuff Up The Fastest Wins" among other great points extolling the virtues of failing fast.  For us, we'll just stick to failing our way to success.  Avoiding failure is just too much work.

Fail Big, Fail Fast, Fail Well

If you want to make serious progress this year, take my advice and start failing. Seth Godin was interviewed on video a while back saying, "If I fail more than you do, I win."
 
Don't make 2012 the year you played it safe.
 
Fail Big. How? Look for outrageous projects, big clients, crazy ventures - and don't do anything unless it gives you butterflies in your stomach. When you have those... that's the test -  you know it's big enough. 

Fail Fast. Learn from your failures and make the adjustments quickly.  Appreciate the failures and keep going and trying.

Fail Well. If you have a cat you know that they like to race around for a few minutes each day followed by hours of napping. So our cat, Courage, comes speeding through the living room toward his 6 foot cat tree. He springs up - flings his front legs into the air - claws out - prepared to grab onto the side of the perch. He totally misses the jump and falls backward. It was ugly and I saw the whole thing. Courage turned around and saw me; he was stunned.  He rubbed his paw over his face a couple times and walked it off. Now that's failing well.  It's gonna happen. People may even see it happen. Just walk it off.  Try again better.

Failure Experts tout Mika Brzezinski’s new book, "Knowing Your Value” ...

Okay while we are NOT in love with her political leanings... we have to give kudos to MSNBC, "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski's new book, "Knowing Your Value" where besides telling her own story of hard fought battles to get paid what she felt she was worth (admitting a lot of failure and missteps along the way) she actually goes out of her way to encourage women to get over their fears of rejection and being told 'no.' A skill that Mika points out, most women lack especially compared to most men. She recounts a story told to her of one woman having lunch with her boss, asking for a raise and then bursting into tears after he said "no." Women most definitely need to learn to use "no" to their advantage (Go for No!) - asking more and learning to take more no's!  This book is another step in the right direction.  Read our recent press release here: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/6/prweb8597579.htm

Surviving Risks and Building Confidence

In our Go for No! DVD, Jack Canfield told us, "Self confidence the way I frame it is the result of a successfully survived risk. If you want to be confident in confronting a potential "No," ask for a lot of stuff so that you get rejected enough to know you can handle it, and that you didn't die." Susan Jeffers, author of, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, explains that "At the bottom of every one of your fears is simply the fear that you can't handle whatever life may bring you."

What happens when you "Go for No" that is - when you try asking for something: resources, a sale, a favor - whatever - is that regardless of the outcome, your confidence has a chance to grow. You get the opportunity to see that you did survive, you did handle it, and really, it's not so bad.  Building your confidence, ironically is not about hoping for the easy yes, it's about dealing with and getting through those tough no's.

Failure gets a good rap from Seth Godin

Seth Godin on How He Started As an Entrepreneur

It's always refreshing to see an iconic business personality like Seth Godin espouse the virtue of failure. Check out the short video and remember this lesson: "If I fail more than you do, I win."

Women In Business Radio Monday April 25th

I have literally made about every mistake you can make in business. I forgot what I was saying on stage speaking to a group of 6000 people. I have botched phone calls, messed up marketing materials, screwed up projects, hired the wrong people and made bad decisions and costly mistakes.

On the flip side: I did get hired to speak to 6000 people, fixed mistakes in marketing materials, saved projects at the edge of disaster, learned to deal with clients and suppliers, made great decisions, and made some good money.

I teach people to learn to fail their way to success (to go for no) and myself have had plenty of failures followed by great success.  I have literally failed forward and heard lots of No's. I can't wait to share just some of the lessons learned on my journey this Monday with Michele Price on Women in Business!    

The Secret of Not Taking it Personally

I don't know about you, but I have almost a pathological desire to be liked by everyone I meet.  And while you might not be so extreme I think when people like us, like our product, like our service - it's easy to make it personal because we want to be liked.  The truth however, is that no matter how wonderful we are, people's preferences, desires, are their own. We see this when we think about people's preferences for things. All things are neutral. They only have meaning when we put our own "stuff" - preferences onto them.  

So it's no surprise then, that when it comes to people NOT liking us, our product, or service we've trained ourselves to also take it personally. This makes sense because if the good stuff is about us then so must the bad be.  And when it comes to Go for No, people often ask how they can stop taking the No's personally. It is imperative that you start to understand that you cannot take it personally! This is one of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz:

Don't Take Anything Personally:  Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

Ultimately the secret is, you can't anything personally. That's right, even the good stuff. Anything means everything. Read The Four Agreements, it can change your life in this area. You can learn to see that all people's perceptions, reactions, etc. are all about them, ironically not about you - and it can free you.

Should You Love NO?

Do you love hearing the word No? Most people don't - in fact, most people hate hearing No! They do everything within their power to avoid hearing No. How? Simple. By avoiding calling and contacting people who they THINK might say no. As it turns out, for many people, that becomes almost everyone! As you can imagine, that is a big issue, right?

First of all, who are we to decide for someone else what their answer will be? In doing so, we rob other people of their opportunity to hear about a service, new product, or interesting offer that could - at the very least make a small improvement to their life... and most - completely change their life!

So, should you fall in love with NO? If you LOVE serving others, if you are in LOVE with the mission you are on... then yes, should love NO... or at least fall into serious "like" with "no!"

How a little NO turned into a BIG YES!

Read a great story courtesy of Bill & Steve Harrison's Reporter Connection. It is a story about a man named Joel Schwartzberg. Joel is the author of The 40-Year-Old Version, a memoir of divorce and parenting his young son. Here is Joel's "Go for No" story as I read it in Steve & Bill's Reporter Connection email:

"Joel wrote an essay and pitched it to the editor of Newsweek's "My Turn" section. The editor said "no" to the essay, but she liked one specific paragraph. Joel took that paragraph and wrote a new essay around it. The subject: post-partum depression in men. The new essay ran in Newsweek. Two years later, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a report about that subject. Looking for commentary, producers Googled "post-partum depression in men," and Joel's Newsweek piece came up in every search. As a result, Joel got booked on Good Morning America, CNN and NPR. And it's all because he turned a "no" into a Newsweek piece."

I appreciate Carol, an editor at Reporter Connection allowing us to re- tell this. There will always be failures and rejections and you just never know what "no" will bring your way!

Harry Potter Author's "Benefits of Failure"

Our good friend Patrick Galvin of Galvin Communications is always sharing cool stuff with us. Today he sent us a link to JK Rowling's Harvard commencement in which she talks about the benefits of failure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pucdJHjZaqs.

Our favorite line... paraphrased... "If you do not fail then you're living so timid a life that then, in itself, is a failure."