Hello everyone! Today I have a post written by my blog friend Brent. He writes over at Vosa.com. Enjoy!
Select all. Delete.
This was what I just did to the blog post I was working on for you.
It might have been a mistake because I was almost done writing it.
It was a gem of a post about why you need to give every dollar you make “a job” since that is the first rule of the very popular budgeting software You Need A Budget (YNAB) that I’m giving away 10 copies of. (More details at the end of this post).
But I couldn’t stop thinking about some advise I received when I had lunch today with a very successful entrepreneur and I knew I had to write about it.
By the way, when I say “I had lunch with a very successful entrepreneur,”. I actually mean: I went to a luncheon where a very successful entrepreneur who has sold three companies for a combined total of more than $680 million dollars gave a talk.
Along these same lines, I’ve also “had dinner” with Rod Stewart, “drinks” with Blake Griffin and “played tennis” with Andre Agassi. But those are stories for another day. There were three things that really stood out for me today during this talk and they all had to do with failure.
At first you might think that it’s a little weird that the three things that stood out from a talk given by a very successful entrepreneur are all about failure but stay with me.
Many times, who we are today, the successes we’ve had and the places we are going are all shaped by failure and the lessons we learn when we fail.
Understand Failure
She shared with us today how incredibly important it is to understand failure. To understand that there is a very real possibility that the idea you have in your head will crash and burn into an absolute failure.
And that, if you fail, it’s okay.
Not everything will go as planned and, for your mental state as an entrepreneur, you need to understand this before you get started.
Failure IS part of the journey to success.
Once you’ve come to understand failure you can move on to the next step.
Respect failure, don’t fear it.
If you look around you (or maybe even when you look in the mirror?) you will see people staring back at you that are absolutely scared stiff of failure. They’ll put off trying almost anything not because they aren’t passionate about their idea, but because they are scare that they are going to fail.
Our society, in almost every way shape and form, has placed such a negative emphasis on failure.
This negative bias towards failure has paralyzed you and so many others who want to chase their dreams but are too afraid to start, too afraid to fail, too afraid to let their parents down, too afraid to let their friends down and worst or all, too afraid to let themselves down.
It’s time to stop being so afraid of failure and start daring to be disappointed.
Dare to disappoint
The concept of “daring to disappoint” was her third piece of advise that I latched onto with the fabric of my being.These three points, all related to failure, compelled me to delete an “all-but-done” post and start over writing this one.
Stop “under promising” just so you can “over deliver” with what is actually a mediocre outcome but appears to be amazing because of the low expectations you set for yourself.
Stop dreaming about that one day when the timing is perfect for you to start a business, a blog, a musical instrument, a budget, a garden, a charity, a passion project, paying down your debt, something, anything.
Grab life by the horns today and dare to be disappointed that maybe, just maybe, you will fail.
But guess what?
Maybe you’ll succeed too.
There is only one way to find out. Try.
As I wrap up this article, I realize two things.
1. This is the first time I’ve ventured outside of my comfort zone with my writing.
Until now, I’ve only allowed myself to write about personal finance, making money (like the time I ran a business out of shoebox and made more than $10,000), entrepreneurship and travel hacking.
Although this post can fit into any of those categories, my true direction with this post was to inspire you and to help add fuel to the fire that’s burning inside of you.
I want you to stop going through the motions day in and day doing things that aren’t making you happier, doing things that don’t align with your ideals or your vision for yourself and the world that you live in.
You are important, you are talented and you can make a difference.
Will this first venture outside of my writing comfort zone fail? Maybe… but I’ll sleep well tonight knowing that before this post was published I understood it might fail but I wasn’t scared of failure. I’ll also go to bed with a huge smile on my face after reading your thoughtful comment and seeing all the likes, tweets, and shares. *hint, hint* 😉
2. I did in fact write a post about budgeting.
If there’s a common theme amongst everyone I know who’s ever budgeted before, that theme is failure. They fail to stay under their budget, they fail to reach their emergency fund goal by their self-imposed deadline, they fail to eliminate eating out and so on.
Budgeting is hard, but it can also be be very liberating. It can be liberating when you finally know where the heck you’re spending your money. It can be liberating when you finally start to pay down your debt, to save more money and it can be extremely liberating to finally break that paycheck to paycheck cycle.
Countless people have been liberated from debt, lack of savings and living paycheck to paycheck after they started using, and living by the rules set out by, YNAB (You Need A Budget).
Did you know that the median net worth increase of a new YNABer is $200.00 in the first month and $3,300.00 after just nine months!?! When was the last time your net worth went up by $3,300.00 in only 9 months?
This budgeting software sells for $60.00 but, since today is your lucky day, I’m giving away 10 copies away to 10 lucky people who dare to be disappointed that they aren’t going to win. Click here and enter to win 1 of 10 copies of YNAB valued at $60.00.
I’d love to hear what you think about this post, about failure, and, if you’re brave, what idea/passion/blog/business you have wanted to start for a long time but haven’t because of your fear of failure.
Please leave me a comment below. Thanks!
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