How To Define Success… It’s Not What You Think

Ask a hundred people to define success and you’ll likely get a hundred different answers. For some it’s about the size of their bank account. For others, success its a measure of joy. Some want fame whether money’s attached to it or not. And many people feel they’re successful only when they have a constant stream of exciting life experiences. If you’ve been a regular follower of mine you probably already know that I NEVER talk about success without also talking about failure! This is, after all, a business blog and for me, these two things intrinsically go together.

I’m Not The Only One Who Thinks This Way!

A few months ago, Self Development Secrets asked me to be a contributor to an article, which examined the meaning of success. They got 176 individuals— CEOs, business owners, editors, bloggers, partners— who are recognized in their field as successful people. After taking a survey, each person, including me, was asked to define success. Check out what we all had to say (you won’t want to miss it!) by reading the full article here. It also contains some insightful infographics!

If You’re Setting Goals For 2018, Keep Reading!

Based on the Self Development Secrets survey, most successful people had failed at least five times! FIVE! Hello, this is a significant piece of data! It proves that you can fail more than once (I sure have!) and still become successful. What everyone on the list had in common was that they never gave up. The most important lesson we have all learned over the years is: don’t be afraid to fail. Of course, that’s not to say you should just wing it and see what happens. You should certainly have a good roadmap based on research, strategy, and goals. But the more you fail, the higher your chance for success.

Some Things Just Naturally Go Together

Like spaghetti and meatballs, or peanut butter and jelly, some things just naturally go together as if one needs the other. Success and failure are two ideas that seem to go hand-in-hand. If you've finally reached some degree of success, chances are you had some failures along the way.

“Let me tell you about the time I lost all my money and had to start over with nothing!”

Ask any super successful businessperson about their failures and they'll probably talk your ear off. They’ll tell you about their grandiose idea, how hard they worked, the fateful bad decision, the lost money, the wallowing that followed. Once they get started, some people never shut up! They want you to know just how spectacularly they failed to highlight how fantastic they are to have rebounded from their epic defeat. So yeah, there's definitely some ego involved in talking about failure. But that's OK. You kind of need a big ego to help you recover from a downfall. You need faith in yourself and your abilities in order to be optimistic that next time will not only be different, but better.

I've had many setbacks and outright failures in my career. However, I've learned something valuable from each and every experience. These moments have helped me define success. In retrospect, I don't even view all of them as failures now. They were more like hard lessons (read: expensive lessons!) that made me smarter and wiser when I decided to try my next big idea.

As exciting as war stories are, especially for anyone who would've gotten a little high seeing me slip up, it's what you do with the failures that’s more important. In this clip from a segment I did on Fox Business with Lauren Sanchez, I cover my plan for recovery.

Transforming Business Failures Into Success

1.    Acknowledge the failure.
2.    Face it head on.
3.    Glean the message.
4.    Ask for help.
5.    Help others.

Literally, get out a piece of paper and jot down these five items. Lay down in writing what your failure has been. What you’ve learned from that failure. What you plan to do about it. (That might be where #4 comes in!). Seek out help from experts, from people who’ve been through it (like me!). Continue educating yourself on what you did wrong so that next time you can do it right! In the Fox Business segment, the examples that Lauren and I go through are what really teach the lessons. In fact, the segment was a good customer service reminder for me, even though I was the subject of the interview.

Small Business Failures & Takeaways To Put Into Practice

Usually, when we make mistakes, we keep making them over and over for awhile. But why? That's the big question. Why do we keep stumbling on a particular issue? Do we continuously put ourselves in harm's way, trusting people we shouldn't? Do we jump in too fast without doing our due diligence? Net/net question to ask on this one: What could I have done differently to change those patterns? Hint: THEN DO IT NEXT TIME.

Take Away #1:  Swallow Your Pride

This is a big source of small business failure. Why? Because we stay too long. We don't want to look stupid. Or, like a quitter. So we keep going, getting in deeper, instead of shuttering a business that isn’t working. Swallow your pride knowing that we ALL make mistakes. Recognize where you blew it and just move on.

Take Away #2: Quit Blaming Everyone Else

Really. The old me was always looking to point the finger at anyone or anything with more mass density than a cloud. I rarely looked in the mirror. Wait, did I just blame my failure on the weather?? Sure did! I’d say, “We were slow last night in the restaurant because of the weather/fires/rain/holiday/month, etc.” So, even the clouds weren't safe! You get SO much further when you stop passing the buck. Put your big girl underpants on and handle it. You're the boss, you're in charge, you're responsible, whether your staff committed an egregious customer service error or not, the buck stops with you.

Take Away #3: A Failure Of Customer Service

We all just want to be heard. As small business owners, we have the benefit of being in charge AND being a customer for other businesses. Sure, there are times when customers aren't right. But there is right, and then there’s business owner right. Take a deep breath and let the customer GO OFF.  It's ok. Even the biggest balloon runs out of air eventually. Put yourself in their shoes and just LISTEN. L-I-S-T-E-N. Even if you think most of what they said was malarky, glean the messages that ARE worth hearing.

Ask yourself:

Why is the customer ranting? Do they just want to be heard because they’ve tried and tried to get ahold of us and we haven’t responded? Are they frustrated about something? Did something actually go wrong? Is it a money issue? Try and get to the root of the problem.

Then, ask:

What will it take to fix the situation? Do they want money, or did they just want to be heard? (Sometimes that really is what it's about). No matter what, some people will never be happy, but if you can turn them from being mortal enemies who will shout from the rooftops about your horrible company, it’s worth it to at least try to pacify them. Finally, ask yourself where you blew it. Could you have been more customer-friendly or responded faster? Do you need to adjust something logistically so products or services arrive when promised?

Growth happens when we stop and examine where we are, how we got there and where we want to go. Sometimes it brings us to the question of: How did I ever get HERE? It's not always a fun one to answer, because usually by the time you're asking that question, you're not a happy camper. So, take a deep breath and write down the answers.

From Your Worst Comes Your Best

I've made just about every mistake in business (some very publicly) which is NOT a lot of fun. I cannot explain how NOT fun it all was. But karma has a loooong memory and yours truly spent a lot of time drinking her own Kool-Aid in the early days, so I certainly deserved what I got. From all of the wretched faceplants and failures, I learned how to be a better business owner. And, in becoming a better business owner, I became more successful. Both in my professional life, and my personal life.

To read my excerpt from Self Development Secrets and access insights from 176 successful influencers, click here. For more business tips and career advice, check out these other awesome articles or contact me if you’re thinking about starting your own business and want support from someone who’s been there, and done that!

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