6: Failure is Subjective

Let’s talk about the F word – failure.

As an entrepreneur, you are going to fail a lot. It’s just going to happen. People will ask you for refunds. Someone’s going to cancel. Your launch is going to flop. No one’s going to buy your course. You’re going to get a mean email or a message. It’s inevitable! Better get used to it now and embrace it. I am not saying this to discourage you or to make you feel bad. It’s a fact that as an entrepreneur, you will face these situations sooner or later. But that’s okay! It doesn’t make you a failure; it just means that you haven’t tried something new.

One of the core principles of my business is test it, tweak it, and try again. The reason this is so important to me is because perfectionism has been something that’s plagued me since I started my business. With the belief of the “more hours I put in and the more successful I will be”, or “the failure is not an option”, you’re setting yourself up for failure, for feeling miserable, and really beating yourself up.

“I’m quite happy I didn’t move forward with it because it would have turned out to be a totally different podcast than what it is now.“

– Maggie Giele

Failure is subjective. Yes, it sucks! 

• The fact that your launch flopped sucks.
• The fact that no one bought your course, which you spent hours on, sucks. 

However, as an entrepreneur, you can learn something from every experience, even if you’ve made the investments and failed. From every failure, every course launch or event that you had to cancel, I’ve been there too. I’ve had to cancel events because they didn’t sell. I had to push back launches. There’s always that ripple effect. There’s always the next one because you can learn from it. You can move forward, and the next will be better because you will always look at testing it, tweaking it, and trying again.

Remember, my first event (a $50 event in my living room in the Netherlands)? I ended up losing money on it because I spent way too much on food. On top of that, I didn’t get a single client from it. Basically, I lost money on doing that which technically will count as a failure. BUT, that caused a ripple effect because it got me seen. It got me so much more visible, built my authority, got me invited to speak at a conference. Months later, it started getting me more and more clients through the ripple effect that that event started.

After I graduated with my Masters of Science in Marketing Strategy, I couldn’t find a job. I graduated in the middle of the economic recession. We moved straight from Amsterdam to Germany. I didn’t speak German, and I didn’t get a single job interview in six months. Then I started my business. So, that period of six months where I was beating myself up, and feeling like a failure because I had somehow massively screwed up my entire career, actually ended up being the best thing that happened to me. It forced me into starting my own business, and that’s where I am today.

I challenge you to think about some failures that you’re still feeling guilty about or beating yourself up. Is there something that you have learned from that experience that you can apply? Is there something positive that has happened because of that experience?

And if you have a business bestie who needs to read this message, go share this with them.  

Love + magic,

Maggie