The Positive Power of Failure
Successful Entrepreneurs Regain Control After Devastating Setbacks
Bouncing back from failure or tapping into the positive power of failure is the biggest predictor of success in business, relationships, and life. Entrepreneurs are risk takers and less cautious by nature. They're optimistic but not always resilient – which is why learning how to rebuild after failure is crucial.
Finding the positive power of failure will make you a successful entrepreneur, but it goes beyond business. Devastating setbacks occur in all aspects of our lives, and the sooner we learn to face failure and regain control, the more successful our lives will be.
Positive Power of Failure: Rebuilding yourself for success
Failure isn't a fatal flaw or social disease that renders you helpless and unhappy. It's not a permanent condition. It doesn't make you less worthy, less intelligent, or less capable. Failure isn't who you are. It's simply an event.
How you cope with failure determines your future. Rebuilding yourself for success makes you stronger, more compassionate, and even physically healthier.
Positive Power of Failure: Stop and think
Figure out exactly what happened. Did location lead you to bankruptcy? Were you fired because you weren't focused? Be honest and specific. Identify your mistakes and take responsibility.
Positive Power of Failure: Regain control
Once you know what went wrong, don't make the same mistakes. You're not doomed to repeat history unless you're unaware of it. Ask yourself what you did right and reflect on your successes. Flex and develop your strengths, skills, and talents.
Positive Power of Failure: Connect
Talk to successful entrepreneurs who've survived similar situations. Find out what worked. What would they do differently? Compare stories. The more you hide the worse you'll feel; be honest about your weaknesses and regrets. Not only is this emotionally healthy, it could open doors to new opportunities. Successful entrepreneurs connect.
Positive Power of Failure: Adjust your perspective
"I actually consider my failure to become a feature film director as the beginning of what I consider a saner and more successful life. After winning the Oscar, I had visions of going right to the top, and when I didn't get there immediately, I began to reconsider my life," says award-winning Bert Salzman.
Becoming a successful entrepreneur by tapping into the positive power of failure can be as simple as stepping back, looking at your life objectively, and realizing that failure doesn't define you. It can make you smarter and more experienced, but it's not who you are.
Positive Power of Failure: Work it, baby, work it!
Recycle your skills and talents. Reuse or relabel your abilities by breaking down the elements of your previous work into small, definable skills. Look at yourself differently – through the eyes of a stranger – and identify your hidden talents and abilities.
Failure can teach you compassion and humility. It offers you a new sense of power and a different way to connect with the universe – if you let it. That's the positive power of failure that can make you a successful entrepreneur.
"Failure is a cleaning of the house," writes Linda Gottlieb, co-author of When Smart People Fail. "It's an opportunity to reorient your career, to inspect it, to relabel it. You learn to keep all your options in play, be light on your feet. Surviving failure makes you bold…Failure liberates you and gives you the courage to risk in a big enough way to guarantee big success."
If you found Positive Power of Failure helpful, try:
- Improving Work Relationships
- Decreasing Work Stress
- Working From Home: Increase Your Productivity & Stay Motivated
Excerpted from "The Positive Power of Failure" by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen in the Fall 2007 issue of Esteem magazine.
