The Magic of Making Mistakes

“If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.” Tallulah Bankhead

We live in a world where we’re conditioned to see mistakes as bad. Which I suppose kinda makes sense.?

I mean, who wants to mess up on that breakthrough call and blow a $10,000 sale, right at the very last minute? Or spend 2 grand on webinar ads, before realizing that you’ve been targeting totally the wrong people.

On the surface, these seem like real kick-in-the-teeth type moments. But are they?

Or are they just about the best opportunities you can have to drive your business forward?

Growth Always Brings Mistakes

Mistakes happen when you get out of your comfort zone. Which is natural, right??

Let’s look at something you do every single day, (or maybe even multiple times a day,) like making coffee at home. I bet you hardly ever make a mistake with that, because you’re operating fully in your comfort zone. You’re so well practiced, the entire process is autonomous.?

But what about if you were suddenly asked to make drinks at the bar in your local Starbucks? You’re still technically making coffee, but because you’re out of your comfort zone, you’d be over-frothing the cappuccinos, butchering the latte art, and making all kinds of mistakes with the grinding, brewing and pouring.

But how long do you think it’d take you to get better at making all kinds of fancy coffee for customers? Not that long, I’d say. Because despite being out of your comfort zone, you’d be focused, engaged, and driven to get as good as you could, as fast as you could.

Would it be uncomfortable? Hell yeah!

There’s not much scarier than an exhausted soccer mom yelling at you because you accidentally used regular hazelnut syrup in her venti mocha rather than the sugar-free stuff.?

Yet it’s precisely because of that discomfort, that you’d force yourself to adapt … Fast.

In fact, if you’re not feeling this discomfort on a regular basis, I’d argue you’re not pushing yourself or your business hard enough.

Mistakes Are All About How You View Them

I’ve known plenty of business owners in my time who run as hard as they can away from making mistakes.?

And when they do make a mistake, they withdraw into themselves, spend hours sulking, and enter a full-blown scarcity mindset.

Guess what? These guys are rarely successful.

Likewise, I’ve known even more guys and girls who LOVE making mistakes.?

Why? Because they know mistakes aren’t negative. They’re an amazing chance to assess a situation, work out what you got wrong, and then use that lesson to do things better in future.

Not surprisingly, these are the people who scale their businesses to 6 and 7 figures the fastest, have the easiest time signing clients, and more importantly - Have a whole lot of fun along the way.

You Don’t Learn Anything Playing Life on Easy Mode

If I could give you a magic button that, when pressed, meant you never made another mistake again, would you hit it?

I really hope not. Because then you’d be robbing yourself of the chance to grow and develop.

It’s like that classic Michael Jordan quote -

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

The reason why MJ was so successful, is because he made so many mistakes.

But every time he made a mistake, he asked himself why he made that mistake, and pushed himself harder, to avoid making that same mistake again.

Make Millions From Your Mistakes

So how does all this relate to marketing and your business?

Well, like I said, it’s easy to beat yourself up when your ad doesn’t work right away, or when you blow a surefire sale. But here’s the thing - You’d have made that mistake at some point anyway, so why not make it sooner, rather than later.

Many companies in the tech industry embrace a philosophy known as ‘Fail Fast.’

Basically, this means they want as many mistakes to happen as early as possible in the process. This means that they don’t then have to spend ages undoing what they’ve done in order to fix early mistakes. And it also means they create a winning product sooner, because they found all the faults right at the start.

I truly believe this is a mantra every online coach and consultant should embrace.

Sure, mistakes can be painful.

But wouldn’t you rather catch them early and learn from them, so you can refine your process and start signing high-ticket clients sooner, rather than remaining blissfully unaware, only for them to come and bite you in the ass (a whole lot harder) at a later date?

I know I would.?