The 3 Lessons I Learned By #Failing

It's not that common of a topic.  Realistically, behind every successful person are a few failure stories.  It's one of the things I love doing when speaking with uber-successful people...everyone has a great #FAIL story.  A bad decision, a series of unfortunate events, or maybe just misplaced trust...failure is inevitable.  Whether you failed because you didn't strategically quit soon enough...or the idea was just bad from the start, it's not the failing that kills...it's the repetition!

1) Learn the Lesson...Move On - Too many times do I see people punishing themselves for previous failures.  Not only does this prevent you from amortizing any lessons learned...it cripples your decision making process.  When I skinned my knee by falling off my bike when I was 6...I could've committed to never ride a bike again.  Instead, I committed to try harder, learn from others AND wear pants until I figured out what I was doing.  Learn your lessons, leverage your knowledge and put into practice some safeguards to help steer you clear of your skinned knee in the future.

2) Quitting ≠ Failure - Similar to my post on the discipline of strategic quitting...often, your best out is your first out.  By improving how you a)Identify pitfalls that lead to failure & b)Avoid them at all costs you are already amortizing previous failures.  If you measure success over a life-time, not a week, month or even year...your definition of failure will change and evolve to include refreshed perspective.

3) Failure Should be Amortized - It's really simple, your failures teach you lessons that last a lifetime (read THIS if you don't know what Amortization means).  When you touches the stove at age 4 and burnt your hand...you learned that it was hot, and it hurts.  Today, you don't touch the stove because you remember...it's hot, and it will hurt.  The pain at age 4 has been amortized over the course of your X number of years since than, making the experience of pain at age 4 well worth the lesson of not burning your hand regularly for X number of years.  Failing in business can be viewed the same way.  I've learned to double check financial information that I once took at face value...learned to not let an employee borrow my car unless I'm willing to pay personally to have it fixed...and most importantly, learned that if I don't prioritize my wife and kids and they feel neglected...Kraft Dinner loses it's appeal 3 nights in a row.

Learn your lessons, Quit before it's too late, Amortize failure over a lifetime.