Conquer Your Hill by Falling a Few Times

Failure is our greatest teacher so embrace those falls.

First, thanks for reading. I hope you like it. Sign up and get a new lesson every week.

My kids ask me how I learned to snowboard. The answer is that I fell. A hundred times and counting before I got down my first hill. And I still fall now. The difference is that each time I fall I learn from it.

It’s the same in life.

In an age where we coddle and protect our kids more than ever, and as we protect and coddle our own egos, it’s really important to remember the value of falling/failing.

I’ve been fired six times, started companies that never got off the ground, created projects that never saw the light of day, and failed countless times as a consultant. I learned from every one of them and that’s why I’m here today.

You simply can’t know what you are capable of unless you fail. Some of my hardest jobs where I failed multiple times proved to be my greatest teachers. You come out of jobs like that with confidence because you know if you could handle that environment, you could handle anything.

Failures allows you the opportunity to evaluate your path. You can pause, sit back and ask yourself if this direction is right for you. For me, failure helped me realize that corporate life wasn’t ideal for me and gave me the confidence to pursue a path in consulting. Had I never been fired, I might still be sitting in a suit somewhere.

People who don’t fail in life don’t succeed. I’m not talking about money. Failure allows you to gain resilience, humility and ultimately a better person. Treat it as a second, third or even fourth chance. Not everyone gets those.

We can’t learn and grow without mistakes — we are humans after all, not robots. Again, I learned to snowboard after falling 100 times. I just choose to not give up until I could get down the hill. Failing the first time does not mean you will fail every time. It makes you more valuable as a person. And frankly, more interesting too.

Failure helps you figure out your passions and what you really want in life. Who the hell is supposed to know what they want right out of school or in their twenties. Embrace failure and those changes in direction, they are all part of the journey and gives you a chance to understand your strengths and weaknesses.

Being comfortable with failure means you are comfortable taking risks. How great is that? Without taking the risk of starting my own consulting company and failing along the way, I would have never arrived where I am today.

"The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure." ― John C. Maxwell