When the legendary Kerry Packer said to Mark Bouris that he needed to have some experience at failure in order to succeed, he was revealing something about business that only the truly successful know. That is, in order to really succeed and reach your true potential, you have to fail first – and more than once.
While this may sound counter-intuitive, only failure will teach you the lessons you really need in order to build a business that is fail safe. Why? Mainly because it teaches you the resilience to get back up and keep moving forward, even after devastating disappointment.
It also teaches you how to assess failure in a learning capacity – why did it go wrong? What should you have done differently? Were there signs that you did not see? When you have the answers to these questions, you then have the information needed to reassess your strategy and approach, allowing you to move forward and start again.
Failure does not always mean a business closing down. It can be anything from hiring the wrong person, not achieving the sales from a current strategy or a broken down business partnership. Any of these scenarios can cause pain, but at the end of the day, they are only truly detrimental to your business success if you don’t learn from them, apply the learning’s to your future and move forward successfully.
Next time you experience failure in your business ask yourself these three questions:
- What was the main factor that led to your failure, and how would you change it next time?
- What new information do you have that can lead to even more success in the future?
- How can you incorporate what you now know into future business planning, using the past to improve the future?
If you consciously assess your failure and turn it into your future success, you will never fear failing again. I say, embrace failure as part of your strategic learning to grow and ultimately prosper.
Join the conversation with Vanessa on Twitter @ceovanessa
Vanessa Stoykov is the creator of No More Practice, and founder of the parent company, evolution media group. She has over 20 years’ experience in financial services as both a journalist and business owner. She is an award winning chief executive who is passionate about creating education and communications to help the wealth industry and consumers fulfill their prosperity potential.
