Fail Hard

I wanted to switch up my usual home inspection related posts to talk about a topic that came up this past week: FAILURE.

Many of my friends are also small business owners (RKR for those Bigger Pockets fans!) and we frequently check in with one another to see if we can help each other with strategy, motivation, direction, etc. If you are self employed, you, too know the challenges we face on a daily basis and that sometimes, we can get caught up in our own little hamster wheels.

Every day we get up, grind, eat, grind, sleep, repeat. When we first start out on our own, we try many methods to achieve success; so many methods! Whether it's through marketing, sales efforts, branding, or even just our daily schedules, there are so many ways to do everything, and we grab onto what we think makes the most logical sense. Inevitably, we will fail. Sometimes our failures will be minuscule and quick, while others will be grandiose and costly. But they will be failures nonetheless.

The trick is turning these failures into lessons. Try, fail, adjust course. If everyone gave up the first time they failed, you wouldn't be reading this on a computer, living with electricity, in a modern home, or driving cars. For every amazing discovery we have, there are 1,000 prototypes that failed. It's having the tenacity, drive, and endurance to battle that 1001st time. Learning how to stand back up after a hit is much more valuable than choosing the safest course.

Towards the end of this last school year, I was asked to interview high school students in a mock interview with pre-determined questions. The teacher asked us to pepper in a question or two of our own, to see how the students would handle it. My favorite interview question has always been this: "Tell me about a time when you failed beyond your belief and what you did after." The students had memorized their answers to the other questions, but every single one of them got wide eyed at the word "failure." They've been taught for so long that failure is not an option, that the mere mention of the word flustered them. In the next moments, as their wheels were turning, I could feel the tension of coming face to face with their fear. What happened next is where character shows, in my opinion. Half of the students told me they hadn't failed, which means they've never tried. The other half told me stories of inadequacy and embarrassment; one froze during a public speech, another had a melt down on her first day of work. After each event, the students recounted how they figured out how not to do it again. To be honest, I was so proud of these kids who have learned such a valuable lesson at such a young age, whether they had previously recognized it or not.

The power to learn and fail better is something we all need. Whenever I have a failure (I'm just at year one of self employment, so it's pretty often!), I take a moment to honor and appreciate the effort, mentally note what about it was wrong, and what parts were right, then move forward with a little more grit.

Don't be so afraid to fail that you never start. It's all a part of the process. Realize that most overnight successes are 10 years in the making and those who have never failed at anything have never really tried.

Go out there and fail spectacularly!