In business (as in life) mental perception is everything.  How you frame things in your own narrative can really be the difference between something getting on top of you or using it as a motivational tool.

In a recent Peer Power group we were having a discussion about that negative narrative holding us back – basically stopping us in our tracks. We ended up focussing on one word in particular:-

“FAIL”

A word that breeds fear and negativity because it is programmed into us from our earliest years.  Society has conditioned us to believe it’s something to be avoided.

❌”If you don’t get the grades in your GCSEs, you’ve failed”
❌”If you don’t pass your driving test, you’ve failed”
❌”If your business struggles or you have to close it, you’ve failed”

 We’ve all heard the expression, “fear of failure” – which makes us think failure is a BAD thing.

But is it really a bad thing?

If you look into the background of exceptionally successful entrepreneurs (such as Steven Bartlett, Sir Richard Branson, Lord Alan Sugar, Elon Musk), all of them have experienced “failure”. Many experienced it in early ventures that didn’t go according to plan, or cost them fortunes. The simple fact is it didn’t deter them, it drove them on. They’d re-evaluate, look at what went on, look at what they should have done differently and “go” again.

Some of my best learning experiences came through “failure”, both on a personal level and a business perspective. To give you an example, in 2012 I had to put a my family business into liquidation (it was a horrendous time both mentally and professionally) but I learned more valuable lessons in that time than I had in the previous decade of when the business was flying

I genuinely believe that you have to frame it differently.  For me, to “fail” at something is to be applauded and celebrated because we all have attempted something that hasn’t necessarily gone as planned – but if we learn something positive from that experience, is it really the dictionary definition of “failure”?

How about looking at the word “fail” as an acronym:

F – First
A – Attempt
I – In
L – Learning

We all need to learn don’t we, and if we implement our learnings – what happens in our “Second Attempt In Learning”?

 We SAIL ✅

And that is what Peer Power is all about, it’s about learning from our experiences and implementing it.