Why It Is Important To Embrace Failure
JourneyNorth Podcast | Season 01 | EP 06
Personally, I’m at the stage of my life where, along with many of my friends around me, we’re thinking about our career opportunities and what we should pursue post-graduation.
“Should we start our own company as fresh graduates?”
“What if I don’t get into my dream “brand name” MNC, where should I go then?”
“Are startups better from a learning perspective or should I chase the brand name?”
Our guest for this episode, Steven, is passionate about youth entrepreneurship, and we spoke about the career options for students who are considering their opportunities. We also touched on the importance of embracing failure.
Who Is Steven Ong?
Steven is the Managing Director of ForwardLeap Training Lab as well as Co-V Coworking. He is currently a Startup Mentor at Temasek Polytechnic and Republic Polytechnic too.
Steven regularly speaks and trains on Personal Finance and Entrepreneurship. He was previously awarded the ‘Best Speaker’ at O-Yes Global Foundation International Conference 2018 for sharing his motivational keynote speech to an international audience of speakers, entrepreneurs, academia and youth leaders.
Life Is A Journey (HEY! Link to JourneyNorth
For those who are panicking and stressing over their career options, don’t fret too much over it! As Steven puts it, you will discover your strengths and weaknesses over time. Even Steven himself never saw himself as a public speaker when he first started his career.
Even for myself, I never imagined myself becoming a podcast host either! Life just takes you strange places somewhere. I’m just riding along~
So, feel free to explore and seize the opportunities you get. You’ll get there eventually!
Everyone Can Be Enterprising
Just because you don’t have your own business, doesn’t mean you can’t be entrepreneurial at heart. Instead, Steven argues that everyone should be enterprising. By that, he means that we should all seek to solve meaningful problems and be innovative in our solutions to the problems.
Regardless of your role or position in a company, you can contribute in your own ways to solve the problems that you face in your own capacity.
Embracing failure is the first step to improvement.
Steven Ong, MD of ForwardLeap Training Lab
Embracing Failure
Life is about incremental improvement, as Steven puts it, and it all begins with embracing failure. In these instances, failure doesn’t have to be “of a large scale” like that of bankruptcy. Rather, it is about the willingness to put your work out there even though it might not be the complete solution yet.
If we become obsessed with “perfecting our solution” without gathering feedback, our solution might not even be sought after by the customers even though it seems perfect in our own eyes. Sometimes, accepting that failure is inevitable and releasing your products prematurely to gather feedback will garner better results.
7M’s of Entrepreneurship
Based on his experience, Steven came up with his own 7M philosophy when it comes to entrepreneurship. Here are the 7 M’s:
- Mindset
- Motivation
- Market
- Mission
- Model
- Message
- Momentum
There are two extra M’s as well:
- Mastery
- Mentorship
For folks who are interested in entrepreneurship, this is a useful framework for you to think about.
Personal Thoughts
The ability to absorb failure is such an underrated skill that nobody talks about. So what if you can conquer the world? It would mean for nothing if you’re unable to withstand the eventual fall from grace.
But how can we “train” ourselves to be accepting of failure? This was actually mentioned in one of the previous episode with Nicholas. Essentially, the only way to be accepting of failure, is to fail enough times that you no longer get overly affected by it.
Show Notes:
- Check out ForwardLeap Training Lab
- Connect with Steven on LinkedIn
Hosted by Marcus Cheu. Connect with me on LinkedIn & Instagram.
If you'd like to tune in to the full episode, you can check out the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.