How to Thrive Through Failure

Hello again and welcome to another of my LinkedIn Newsletter! This week’s advice comes to us from Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book Choose Possibility! And should you be around today at 12 pm EST / 9 am PST/5 pm GMT, join me for this week’s episode of my Newsweek interview series, Better! I’ll be talking with the author of The First, The Few, The Only, Deepa Purushothaman! We’re going to be talking about how to redefine power at work, and we would love to hear your thoughts. Please join us here!

If you can’t make today’s interview, there’s no need to worry, because there is always a replay available! We upload these weekly interviews to my YouTube page. If you’d like to be notified when the newest episode is available, subscribe to my channel and you’ll receive a notification.

If you’ve ever thought that there was one particular decision that would make or break your life, you’re not alone. But in the eyes of Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, you’re way off base. Even when a decision results in failure, our path to success is actually created by the continuing choices we make one after the next. Last week, Sukhinder shared how we are given more chances than we might realize to get to where we want to go. If you weren’t able to join us for this conversation, you can watch the entire talk here. For now, here are a few thoughts she shared about how we can make sure we are focused on continually taking the right chances with each opportunity that presents itself.

The myth of the single choice

“I think we can all identify with feeling paralyzed by one choice, big or small. Sometimes we're paralyzed even from taking the smallest action. It’s what I call the myth of the single choice. We all carry in our heads that we are one choice away from glorious success or abject failure. What if I told you that every time you make a big choice between you and the big reward you imagine, there are probably a thousand more choices to be made. If you only count on a single choice, I think that might be the riskiest move you make in your career. If however, you embrace risk-taking as a process of continually choosing and getting the result from that mini outcome, you can make the reality that you want happen.”

Don’t let ego get in the way

“By and large for the average person who's going into work every day, they are in a place where they think that their values generally fit and they are with people they like. Most of the time, the risks that keep us from having an impact today at work are ego-driven. People think, ‘What if I look stupid?’ But what if you advance the conversation? Even if you don't get the response you want, have you advanced the chances of success for the whole room? The chances are probably yes.”

Make sure your choices aren’t reckless

“Ask yourself ‘How does this match against my goals? How does this choice match my passions and values? How does this choice maximize working with smart people? Are you entering something with a headwind situation or tailwind?’ If you can't answer those four basic questions, chances are you're being reckless. But if you set a timeframe for yourself to fill in the blanks against any known parameters, you will have enough information to broadly compare and make a choice.”

Thank you so much for reading this week’s newsletter - I hope you’ll join me later for my talk with Deepa Purushothamon!

On a final note, if you’re looking to keep tabs on my continuing exploration of Miami, follow my instagram page. It’s also where I also feature my feline friends Phillip and Heath.

Wishing you health and success -?

Dorie