How To Turn Epic Failure to Success!
I've been reflecting recently about success and the aspects of success that most people do not talk about.
I have also spoken previously about my five worst ever jobs, and the life lessons I've learned from them.
The thing about your journey to financial independence is that the money journey by itself is often quite long and difficult.
It's filled with ups and downs, booms and busts, successes and failures.
This last bit about failures is one that we just choose not to talk about .
Perhaps because culturally, it's just not cool to talk about your failures 🤔.
My experience and my personal journey with my wife has shown us that we all have individual failures in our lives.
Pick this unusual year, for example, with the pandemic. Many people failed to achieve their goals 😤.
A certain approach towards those failures is necessary in order to almost unlock us from our current situations, and help us move forward.
So today, I'm going to talk to you about how to deal with failures in your life in order for you to then move ahead and succeed.
You might currently feel like a failure because you've taken on too much debt or you're repeatedly in debt, day after day, month after month, year after year.
Perhaps, feeling like a failure because you're not moving ahead in your career at the moment and you're currently stagnant.
Or because you've started businesses and it's been catastrophic failures, time and time again.
Today, I'm going to really just give you some of the examples in my own life of my own failures.
Somebody messaged me the other day and said “Ken I googled your name? And you've got a Bloomberg profile.”
I was like, wow, “a Bloomberg profile for me”?
And I thought, now I've got to go see this for myself.
I went on Google and googled my own name, I thought, “jeez, this is interesting”.
And of course, I saw all sorts of things about my “successes”.
It said something like ‘Ken, he's a CFO, MBA from Cambridge, he did this and that…'
What that profile or my LinkedIn might not tell you is that I qualified as a chartered accountant then got made redundant.
Immediately sacked!
And I felt like a failure, I really, really did.
Because I thought I worked so hard.
Why have I been made redundant?
And that moment of my life, it really, really held me back.
But you can see the transformation that has happened over time.
Another example is that you might look at me today…
I'm teaching you about saving money and making money and ultimately about financial independence.
But at one stage of my life, I made a catastrophic mistake, and used a large chunk of my savings to buy a really expensive car (big regret!).
You might look at my life today and see, this guy's had a great education.
He's got first-class degree, he went to do an MBA at Cambridge, he's done all these amazing things.
But what you might not see is that at one stage of my life, I failed so many exams, that I was repeatedly called a “Blockhead”.
Now some of you guys from the African part of the world, or maybe even in Asia may recognise this term of being called a “Blockhead”.
Imagine that right?
To go from now being called “Blockhead”, constantly failing exams and tests.
And to become a first-class degree holder or an MBA from Cambridge, and all those other things.
I wanted to just share these examples to open this conversation 😀.
Let's dive in now and look at the specific ways that I personally think you should think about your failures.
Plus how you can deal with them in order to help you move forward.
Whether it's in your money life, whether it's in your family life, whether it's in your relationship or your career, or your business.
These tips on how to move away from failure should hopefully help you take that next step forward.
TURN FAILURE TO SUCCESS
Here are 5 practical ways to turn failure to success for your future:
1 – TALK ABOUT THE FAILURE
The first way to deal with failure is to talk about failure.
Now, you might think, right, I failed.
I am embarrassed.
Therefore, I don't want talk about the failure.
However, by not talking about it, nothing moves forward. A bit like a stalemate, you are just stuck.
But what you should be doing is the complete opposite – talking about it.
Because what I've noticed in my journey actually is to get to the next step starts by having a conversation.
I'll give you a very practical example:
It's currently quarter to seven in the morning.
Last night, between 9 pm and 12 Midnight, I was with my sister.
She called me regarding a particular section of her business, which was pretty much failing.
She didn't talk about it, and she spoke about everything but the failure.
I went over to her house to just have a chat about it.
We spent two and a half to three hours just dissecting everything about the business.
At the end of that time, when I was leaving, she felt energised, she felt hopeful 😊.
And she believed there was a possibility for looking at this in a different way and making the business work.
But had she not had that conversation, had she kept dwelling on it in her mind and just bottling things up, nothing would have changed.
If you are currently facing a form of failure in your life, no matter what it is, find someone to have a conversation with.
2 – USE FAILURE AS AN ASSET
The second way to deal with failure is to use it as an asset.
This is a bit of a mindset one.
I've had some spectacular mindset shifts in my life, and created a video about 10 mindset shifts that completely changed my life.
If you look at a lot of the research around people who've succeeded in areas such as sports and business…
And if you look at their stories, and listen to their interviews, or read their autobiographies…
You will find a lot of these people have what's known as a “Point of No Return Event.”
Which is something negative that happened that lead to a transformation.
That has meant that it's become an anchor to propel them forward to success.
I can personally think of so many of those.
For example, sitting in a boardroom with a really terrible manager for my annual review…
The manager was telling me that she's basically got my life in her hands because she managed me and can determine my career destiny.
That was a “Point of No Return Event.”
Which always makes me remember why I love this idea of financial independence.
You are gaining back power into your life ✊🏽.
Nobody should ever make you feel so little to the point of making you feel like a failure or make feel depressed.
You too will have your “Point of No Return Events” or you can identify them by sitting down and reflecting upon them.
They might be the failures you're in today, you might be feeling like a failure right now.
But what I'm trying to tell you is this failure could be used as an anchor.
In effect an asset to help you propel yourself forward.
A way of reframing where you are and using that to help you take that next best step.
3 – A NECESSARY PART OF SUCCESS
The third way to think about failure is to think of it as a necessary part of success.
I remember reading a quote once, that said that
You have only failed if you have decided not to get back up.
Whenever I remember that quote, it just gives me such a boost because what that's really telling us is that failure is an individual choice.
It's for you to choose that you have failed.
It also makes me realise that failure is actually a part of life.
Necessary part to propel us to the next place.
That decision you make to choose to get back up is a way of telling yourself that you haven't failed, that you are currently on your way to success.
There are things you learn on that journey.
A really good example of this is that I used to run a tutoring business and did this for about two to three years.
Although that tutoring business did well – It covered its costs and had potential.
However, in the end, I ended up passing it on to a friend of mine because I just did not have the right resources to make that business scale up.
I felt that somebody else had enough time allocation to actually take the business and move it to that next level.
To me, this was actually a failure.
I spent three years of my life trying to make this thing take off.
Although I could see the potential somebody else had to move on forward from then on.
But the key thing I learned was that I needed to explore, a business model that best suited my own life and my own lifestyle and things that I wanted.
For me, that business model was to explore the internet world, the online world, and learn some digital skills.
Those digital skills, as you can see, are things I'm using today, across all platforms, whether it's on YouTube, on the blog, or on our academy, etc.
These are skills that have only come about because I went through a period of turbulence and struggle to make the tutoring business work.
So current failure can and will transform into success if you have the right mindset.
4 – SEE FAILURE AS A TEST
So in business, there is a concept known as fail fast.
The idea here is when you start a new venture, whether it's a business or something else, your whole focus you should be to try and fail as fast as possible.
Rather than keep dragging along the business or side hustle that you've got thinking that it might become a success one day.
The concept of failing fast, is actually very useful.
It reveals to you very early on whether this thing you're working on is something that has any potential or not.
It's also useful because it becomes really cost-effective.
Because if you're failing fast, you're cutting your losses as quickly as possible.
So you could always think of this idea as being experimental.
Think of it as a process in getting you towards that success that you desire.
Almost like an experiment in finding out whether something is worth you pursuing or not.
But failing fast requires that mindset, again, of understanding that this whole thing is a process.
Success doesn't just come about, it comes about through many experiments, many failures along the way.
It's all connected together in helping you get to that place that you want to get to.
5 – SEE FAILURE AS A PAST EVENT
The final tip to mention for turning failure to success is to see failure as a past event.
Now, I appreciate that you might currently be at a place of failure in your life.
But the way I like to think is that your current and past failures as almost your worst case scenarios.
If you think of it from that perspective, it's a good pathway to develop some of the mindset shifts that I've talked about.
Try hanging around with the right people.
There are people who are open enough to talk about their failures, they realise that failure is a necessary part on the journey.
Whether it's on their money journey, career journey or on their business journey.
Failure is a necessary path in different ways for us to learn what we need to learn, in order for us to move forward.
Hanging around with the right people really helps open up your mind, and gives you that comfort, to talk about your shortcomings and your struggles.
In order to step ahead. I do this personally through masterminds.
So I am a part of a couple of masterminds, where I meet up with people, once every two weeks.
These are people who are doing the things I want to do who are excelling in different ways.
We can talk about what hasn't worked out.
We show up, discuss small wins, where we are doing well, our shortcomings and where we need some help.
Being in an environment like that really just encourages the right behaviour.
Also the right way to think about failure as a process and as a journey towards you becoming a success in your life.
What To Read Next>>
- The Hidden Upsides of Having a Job
- The Importance of a Deliberate Morning Routine
- 3 Unique Side Hustle Ideas That Work Now (Make Money Online)
What To Watch Next>>
- 10 HIGH PAYING 6-FIGURE JOBS (degree & no degree)
- 7 JOB SUCCESS SECRETS FOR 6 FIGURES
- 14 HIGH PAYING SIDE HUSTLE IDEAS 2021
For more on turning failure to success – How To Turn EPIC FAILURE to SUCCESS!
What are your experiences of dealing with failure?
Are you currently stuck where you are in your life because you feel like a failure?
And you just don't know how to move on? Please share below.
Do please share this post if you found it useful, and remember, in all things be thankful and Seek Joy.
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