Millionaire MBA Day 5: Dealing With Failure
by
Millionaire MBA
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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Copyright © Millionaire MBA 2011
First Published 2011 by ELW Publishing Bath, UK
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Contents
Introduction
A few years back, 50 leading UK entrepreneurs and business owners were interviewed in their homes, offices and hotels. The purpose of the interviews was to find out exactly what made them successful, and how other aspiring entrepreneurs could replicate their business success.
Those digitally recorded audio interviews were turned into a 'timeless' business mentoring programme called Millionaire MBA. Millionaire MBA is regarded as one of the best programmes in the world to teach entrepreneurial thinking and the 'millionaire mindset'.
Millionaire MBA is a rich, deep mentoring programme which existing and aspiring entrepreneurs listen to over 40 days. Literally tens of thousands of entrepreneurs (like you) around the world have benefited from this programme.
In this ebook, you’ll find the actual transcription from one whole day of the mentoring programme.
To find out more about the full business mentoring programme or to listen to the audio version, please visit http://www.millionairemba.com/
Day 5: Dealing With Failure
We address this early on in the course because, to some degree, failure is inevitable.
Whether it's a catastrophic business breakdown, the incapacity to secure a crucial deal, or simply the inability to satisfy a customer's needs, failure, without question, is part and parcel of life - and it's certainly part and parcel of being an entrepreneur.
It's important to accept this as a fact of life and learn to deal with failure now, rather than reacting badly when it eventually comes your way.
Failure goes hand in hand with success. Failure may be seen as its opposite, but it's also the forerunner to success. There can be no success without failure.
It's from setbacks that you learn more and develop the resolve and wisdom to move on to greater achievement.
A commonly cited example of this is Thomas Edison, who invented the electric light bulb. Every day Mr. Edison toiled to design a working electric light bulb.
Each day, for many years, his invention was not the success he wanted. In fact, he had over 10,000 failed attempts before he became successful. Mr. Edison didn't, however, see those 10,000 attempts as failure; he saw those as essential elements in achieving his goals.
Through his persistence and his ability to see failure as feedback, he was able to change the world.
Take a moment to listen to how our entrepreneurs see failure.
Glenda Stone
What I've learnt from my failures... If you don't fail, I think you're not being truthful to yourself. Everyone makes failures, and that's what you grow from and you learn from.
What I've learnt is on two levels. I've learnt more about me as a person - I've learnt that I am very resilient, that I do bounce back, that I do move on quickly.
I have learnt about the business in terms of risk, how you control risk, how the business bounces back.
One of my favourite sayings is that I always have a Plan B for Plan B. I've learnt from a number of extraordinary failures, from small little ripples to things that were really bad decisions. But I've learnt from them, and I think if it doesn't kill you, it only makes you stronger and it certainly makes you wiser.
Mark Marsland
You have to be able to take something positive from a failure. So, is there such a thing as the word "failure"?
Failure sounds such a big drop, doesn't it? Not a failure - a setback, that's all that it is. A failure is just a setback when things don't work out the way you're expecting them to.
What you must do when you hit a setback is take something from it. Something good always comes from a setback.
It's not until you're a little bit further down the road, looking back, that you can say, "God, yes, if that didn't happen, this wouldn't have happened; and if this wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't have found out about this; and that wouldn't have led to that."
You've got to remember that sometimes the jigsaw piece doesn't fit, but if you keep searching, you'll find the piece that does. All that a setback is - all that a failure is - is the inability to find the right piece of the jigsaw.
All you've got to do is keep looking forward, find the right piece, slot it into place and get building that jigsaw again.
There is a theory that I do subscribe to - and I always say it to myself whenever I hit points of adversity - and that is that you can't move forward looking back. And you really can't.
Chris Rucker
Every time, you just have to learn from each one as it comes along, try not to do it again the next time. When I was young, I used to ride a lot - I used to fall off a lot, too - but you just have to get back on again, and you just have to.
Each time something goes wrong, you have to do as much as you possibly can, as quickly as you possibly can, and try not to do it again. It's all part of the learning process, and it's really important.
Tim Etchells
I'm quite big on failures - not that I've had that many; I've obviously had a few - but my view in life is that I don't mind banging my head against a brick wall once. I get extremely cross when it happens twice.
I genuinely believe that a failure should be seen in a positive light.
You shouldn't be depressed and downhearted about it, and, certainly - providing you've left enough funds in place to absorb that because obviously the financial hit comes in there somewhere, providing you take a philosophical view of the money - I think you've just got to pull it apart and be very analytical and say, "What went wrong? Why did it go wrong?"
Don't be afraid of blaming yourself because, invariably, you are the captain of the ship.
You might have had a night watchman who let you down, gave you wrong information, but, at the end of the day, you are the captain of the ship, so you do need to take a fair bit of responsibility.
I think it's very important if there are others involved - which, invariably, there are because it's going to be somebody in your company who might have caused whatever failure - to talk to them as well, clear the air, make sure that they understand and so on, and have a thorough debrief or whatever it is that's necessary.
I certainly don't believe in brushing those things under the carpet.
I think you pick yourself up, you dust yourself down and you say, "Off we go again." Put yourself back on the tracks and have another go and try not to get it wrong.
It's important to understand the link between success and failure. From now on, you may want to change the way you think about successful people.
Rather than seeing them purely as successful individuals, change your perspective to see successful people as successful failures. In reality this is what they are.
They'll have faced and conquered failure more often than many could ever begin to imagine. It's their ability to recover from failure and to charge forward to achieve their goals that sets the successful entrepreneurs apart.