Failure Is the One Thing We All Have in Common

There’s one experience we all share regardless of age, background, or financial status:

Failure.

We’ve all got stories we’d rather not talk about, frustrations we wish we had avoided, and decisions we’d take back if we could.

Even though we all share the experience of failure, we tend to hide those stories, especially in business contexts. We’re happy to share our successes…but our failures are buried in a graveyard that we don’t even visit on holidays.

But if we all agree that failure is something we all share then our failures are the most relatable stories of all!

Let’s start with your favorite business success story…Airbnb, Apple, Amazon, Facebook…

Every one of them has a timeline filled with peaks and valleys. They missed goals, had messy pivots and some flat out flops (Amazon’s Fire Phone, anyone?).

So let’s stop pretending we’re supposed to get it all right the first time!

For example, when we started BlueInc, we spent countless hours doing what we thought “real businesses” do:

• Designing presentations

• Creating detailed training kits

• Coming up with the perfect name for the company

• And even trying to name our workshops 😬

We literally spent days on my back porch working on that list above. We creatively decided to call our sessions “train-shops”...a mashup of training and workshop.

Spoiler alert: we’ve never delivered a single “train-shop” at BlueInc.

We had a spreadsheet with over 100 possible names for the company.

At one point, Johannes just said:

“We’re never going to start if we don’t pick something. I’m choosing this one. Let’s go!”

And even then, with a name, a brand, and a plan, we still didn’t have success. Customers weren’t knocking down our door in those early years..

But eventually, we realized what people actually needed, we adjusted, and we traded overthinking for delivering value.

So If you’re in the middle of a failure, there’s good news!

• You’re not broken,

• You’re not behind, and…

• You’re in good company.

  
  

Failure is part of the process, not a sign of the end. In fact, it might be the very thing that clears the way for your next breakthrough.

So pick your next move. Try something else. Adjust and keep going.

The only true failure is refusing to keep moving forward.