I own failure.
I am by far the least perfect representative of anything in the world. I've fucked up thousands of times, as I've told you. Even today, sitting and playing with my kid, I did something to annoy him at least twice. And my wife, we have our good times, but boy can she kick me up the arse if I need it. I mean, life is good, yes, that's the way I see it, but I'm still making big fuck off blunders daily and walking blindly into shit that will probably lose me a lot of dollar here and there.
The trick is I've grown to learn from them.
And the same in business. You see me here, writing to you, but I do several other things as well. I didn't just suddenly walk into business and think, "awesome, I'm perfect, look how great I am" - to do so would be utterly stupid, and, I would have been set up for failure straight away.
I started off in business a good 6 years ago. And wow, was it a sharp learning curve. The first business client I was ever introduced to - I pissed them off by rubbing them up totally the wrong way. And some of my customers I would have long and drawn out religious and Political debates with. Let's just say the first few months were a sharp, sharp, sharp learning curve for me.
I had to learn failure pretty damn quickly. My ego was so big you could barely back me out of a truck stop gate. In short I angered clients, annoyed customers and sold zilch. Nada, zero. It was tough, and I expected to be sacked from my job sooner or later, but alas, they knew I was a trainee and that I would eventually learn. And I ultimately did that, and it's where the beginnings of my positivity trend started from.
I was always one for really holding tight inside to the failure of a person I was. I would cling onto it like a limpet. Any new mistake and I'd hold onto it, let it burn deep and tell no-one. On the outside I was a regular level headed chappy, unless you were really close to me of course, but that failure, the fear of failure burned so deep and hard that I had to cling onto anything to make life bearable. Alcohol perhaps? Unsure.
It was my boss that helped me in the end. She was an elderly woman, and very warm. She'd always say to me - you've no fear of being sacked so don't worry, just tell me if you've messed up and we'll look at how we'll sort it. And through that I gradually learned step-by-step how to see mistakes as a chance to learn from them rather than beat myself up about it. Perhaps sometimes I don't beat myself up as much as I should. Some people have said that to me in the past.
I see it like this. Everything that's new to me I'm not going to get it right first time. New projects, new methods, new people, new relationships, everything in life. So every time I mess up small, or big style and I've recognised that mistake (sometimes we don't realise we've fucked up) then rather than get too caught up in the moment I make steps to rectify it for the next time.
The business client I pissed off, I rectified that with a serious massaging of the ego and apology, the customers I annoyed, I apologised deeply and refrained from those conversations ever again, and over the space of two years we built my project into the most successful one my company had ever seen. And you don't do that by not understanding that we're all imperfect.
Even the Queen goes for her Royal shit in the pooper now and again. (I keep saying that! Ha. No I'm not fixated on the Queen lol)
So I think it's time we embrace a little bit of failure and accept that it's the path to success. Bill gates didn't become a Microsoft magnate on his first day of the job. I bet he nearly threw in the towel countless amounts of times.
It only takes that one successful event to make a success of things, but it's built on the back of several thousand fuckups! (Please tell me if I'm swearing too much. I can stop!).
So on that note, I bid you good night.
Fail lots, and learn more
