Turn Your Ls Into Lessons
Facing failures is an important part of life but most people associate losses with defeat - the type of defeat that there’s no coming back from. The proverbial nail in your coffin if you will. 🔨🔩⚰️
It's programmed into all aspects of our lives. Parents and guardians do their best to make sure their kids don't face pain for the most part.
In school, we are taught that if you get a D or an F, you’re a failure.
At work, our bosses might tell us that if we don’t close an account, we shouldn’t bother coming back to work.
In sports, if someone misses a shot or penalty, a lot of us are quick to ridicule that person.
In our families, if we happen to “marry the wrong person” or “choose the wrong job”, we are labelled disappointments.
Essentially we have created a world whereby failure can affect how we see ourselves and how others see us. We have this relationship with failure that somehow translates into shame, disgrace and lack of initiative.
I’d like to suggest that we reconsider this relationship though because the journey is more important than the destination. It's like Arthur Ashe once said. “Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.”💡🔦
As I reflect on my losses today, I love understanding how my failures were teaching moments for me.
🔥 My 85+ job rejections after college helped me understand the importance of not giving up 🔈🔉🔊
🔥 My near death experience gave me perspective of how short life is⏱
🔥 My 4 MBA rejection letters led me to take a gamble and move to NYC where I launched my career.
🔥 My getting fired twice helped me focus on my vision and choose myself. 🔭🔬
Connecting the dots backwards, I realize the following:
- When we fail, we learn.
- We grow and mature.
- We achieve new understandings and perspectives on life, love, business, money, relationships, and people.
- We’re forced to make new connections and bridge gaps where we couldn't have connected the dots previously.
Without failure, we’d be less capable of compassion, empathy, kindness, and great achievement. It’s through failure that we learn the greatest lessons that life could teach us.
I want you all to understand that it’s okay to fail so ignore the naysayers, use your experiences to create an action plan and turn your Ls into Lessons!
USE YOUR DIFFERENCE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE