Getting Used to Failure as an Entrepreneur

hello everyone this is sheila shafi and welcome back to another episode by process arc we're going to talk about failure and the importance of acknowledging and accepting failure as part of being an entrepreneur now it's probably one of the hardest lessons i had to learn and accept because i never thought that things weren't going to go my way typically entrepreneurs are really hard-working a type personalities that equate hard work to success but unfortunately that equation doesn't always hold up as an entrepreneur and in today's video i'm going to talk about some of the major learning lessons that's going to help you take failure as something that we've always acknowledged to be something that's negative and spin it around into something that can help you grow and be successful long term now as entrepreneurs we're always betting on things and you hire a new product a new partnership that's going to take you to the next level but it doesn't always work out that way and knowing how to deal with that disappointment and that failure is really important we've always been told really since we were kids that if you study really hard you're going to get into a good university if you work really hard at your job you're going to get that next promotion and the higher pay again we've always been sort of taught to equate hard work and ambition with some sort of a financial gain or success and that equation again doesn't always exist in entrepreneurship and there are many cases of that if you think about startups with millions of dollars backing them ultimately failing now there's a lot of different reasons why a startup may fail and those are kind of what i would categorize as catastrophic failures that's not what we're going to talk about what i really want to focus on are the day-to-day failures that feel like they knock you off your feet and they cause great cause of concern and angst for you i want to talk about that type of failure and what you should do about it now don't get me wrong what i'm not saying is hey all of you guys out there that want to be an entrepreneur just don't bother stop don't even try to get on this journey it's actually the opposite i'm saying that this is an incredibly exciting journey but you have to have an element of resilience or rather be prepared to increase your resiliency factor in this journey which means that you're going to get knocked off your feet you're going to fall down you're going to fall on your face but you're going to have to learn to pick yourself back up and try again so here are some of the best lessons that i have learned on this journey not just by myself or for myself but by also observing other entrepreneurs taking their idea from some idea they had all the way to building multi-million dollar businesses so the first lesson is accept it accept that failure is going to happen it's not personal and it's not your fault because there are so many things in the world of an entrepreneur that is completely out of your control but what you can do is prepare yourself for it mentally psychologically and emotionally if you know that it's coming or it will come at some point in time then you can accept it acknowledge it and move forward but if you constantly think that hey it's not going to happen to me i am super successful super smart i've got the best product i've got the best distribution strategy i've got the right partnerships i've got the right advisors whatever that is and because of all those things i'm not going to fail when it does happen when something does knock you off your feet the chances are it's going to be harder for you to pick yourself back up so just accept it that it's going to be part of your journey the second lesson is learn from your failures when something goes wrong the best thing you can do is figure out why something didn't go your way where did you overestimate where what did you underestimate what could you have done differently are there deals or issues immediately that you need to be addressing to mitigate future risk so learning from your failure and your mistakes is probably the biggest lesson here doing a postmortem is incredibly important because it's going to help you figure out what your missing link or weak link is whether that's in how you launched a product how you built a product how you put a proposal together to a prospective client how you structured the deal understanding all those weaknesses or trying to figure out what didn't go your way will help you mitigate risk in the future and increase your chances of success downstream the next lesson is don't be afraid of failure and it goes back to point number one if you expect it if you acknowledge that it's part of your journey you shouldn't really be afraid of it think of failure not as an end to your business or an end to your journey but a roadblock that you're going to have to overcome so when you are afraid of something your tendency is to avoid it all together so it may actually hinder your business from growing or getting to the next level but if you just say that listen i know it's gonna it's something is not gonna go my way or i may fall on my face and fail or this venture may not actually reap the kind of benefits that i expect then your chances are you will actually step forward and move forward with that idea and it will give you the learning lessons and the insights that you need to modify what it is that you're doing to get yourself to the next level so just don't be afraid don't give up and the last lesson is set realistic expectations you know when i think about the partnerships we've built in our business or the kinds of clients we were able to win i didn't always go into those relationships thinking yes that's going to give us the next multi-million dollar that we had expected but rather tampered my expectations so that in case things didn't go our way i didn't feel like i've been sucker punched in some way so it's always better to be conservative in your expectations and potential outcomes than being overly optimistic everything to me feels like an upside if i want a new deal it's an upside it's not something that i anticipated or i targeted but i just feel like hey that was great we did our best we got it now let's make sure we retain that client retain that product whatever it is to make sure that we continue to build on our successes so setting appropriate expectations clearly will also help mitigate any sense of failure that you may get now the worst thing about failure is that it creates feelings of angst anger and disappointment and the last lesson for you is don't turn those feelings onto yourself and beat yourself up every time things don't go your way because you don't get anything beating yourself up feeling sorry for yourself thinking that hey i'm just such an idiot i should have known better doesn't help you in any way just know that again there are certain elements that are out of your control and as long as you've done your best you've considered all the aspects you've put the best deal forward you've put your best foot forward that's all you can do just learn from it move on know that it took courage for you to even put yourself out there be proud of yourself it's going to be a lot of work but it will pay off congratulate yourself for starting the journey now i would appreciate it if you subscribe to this channel because it gives me a sense of encouragement as i hopefully am helping you in your entrepreneurial journey i would love to hear from you of the learning lessons you've had along the way where you have failed what you've done with that failure and i look forward to seeing you again next week thank you for joining me

Channel: Sheila Shaffie - ProcessArc

Views: 18

Keywords: getting used to failure as an entrepreneur, critical thinking, processarc, sheila shaffie, problem solving, client experience, Process mapping, Process boundaries, Segmentation, Process validation, Lean, Six sigma, Agile, Design thinking, Financial services, Services sector, Change management, Lean six sigma training, Robotics, Data, PowerBI, Data vizualization, Data mapping, Business transformation, Performance management, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur, failure, startup failure

Id: Gc-nmyk0EIY

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 05 2021