Two Hidden Skills You Need For Online (or any) Success

I’ve talked often in the past about my failings online in an effort to try and make people see that the sheer act of having something NOT go the way you want is not in itself a representation of your level of success… at anything.

In other words, failING is not failURE. Failing is a process, it’s dynamic, it’s at least moving. Failure is static, it’s final, it’s an outcome.

But at the same time, failing OR failure in itself won’t make you successful. Below are two factors that I think determine how successful a person or a business is…

First we need to recognize that failure is, like few other things, a constant.

If you want to achieve anything in your life, you soon realize that failing often is just part of the process.

But as so many wiser than I have observed, it’s what you do with your failures that makes the difference. Here are two factors that separate great people and organizations from mediocre ones.

Note that I’ll call them here mistakes, not failures, again because a mistake is part of a dynamic process but a failure is final.

1. How Quickly You DETECT Your Mistakes

Think about that. Experienced companies are the ones who can very quickly detect when something is failing.

They have stringent measures in place to analyze the results of any venture and so they see as quickly as possible when something isn’t meeting the clear standards they set.

They don’t have to keep sinking money into something they know isn’t moving them towards their goals. Their goals are clear and their measures are precise so when the outcome isn’t hitting the target, it’s bye bye, and fast.

Think about that in your own life. Are your goals clear enough that you’d know immediately if you weren’t moving towards them? Do you have a tangible measure for your results so you know within weeks if you’re not meeting them?

2. How Well You RESPOND To Your Mistakes

Of course, being able to quickly detect your mistakes doesn’t mean much if you’re not able to make whatever change is necessary to turn them into successes.

So great people and companies are flexible enough that when something doesn’t go as they’d planned, they can quickly and effectively change their course and begin acting in a way that’s more aligned with the goals they’re clear about.

It’s about being bold enough to say “AWESOME, I screwed it up badly and now I’m going to take responsibility and make it right!”. It’s about being able to say “Yes, I thought that other way was going to work, I invested alot into that EMOTIONALLY and now even though it damages my poor ego I’m going to put that aside and do what has to be done!”

And those are hard things to say.

Successful people can quickly implement new strategies based on what their measuring told them was wrong about their initial approach. The factor that caused the failure is quickly phased out and progress continues.

The Point…

… I’m trying to make is that success in anything isn’t about NOT failing, it’s about failing often but failing RIGHT. I’m always laughing to myself about what people think about some of the failures I make on a continual basis. Just this last couple of weeks I implemented something new in our business that I had known about all along, never gotten done, and as a result had left probably $10-15000 dollars on the table. Suffice it to say I feel like a complete idiot until I remember that failing is constant, and learning is your only option.

There’s no need to beat yourself up if something didn’t work, or get frustrated and quit. Just love your failures, take enjoyment in exploring them for the lessons and for goodness sake love the whole process of it… you’re running your own business, it’s EXCITING!

Hope this post gave ya some food for thought