{"id":593,"date":"2012-05-10T15:29:44","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T15:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marniepehrson.com\/unplugged\/?p=593"},"modified":"2012-05-10T16:05:59","modified_gmt":"2012-05-10T16:05:59","slug":"i-dont-believe-in-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marniekuhns.com\/unplugged\/2012\/05\/10\/i-dont-believe-in-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"With This Formula You’ll Never Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fear<\/a>I’d say the biggest barrier that holds people back from shining as brightly and brilliantly as they could is the fear of failure. “What if I mess up? What if I make a fool of myself? What if it doesn’t work? How embarrassing!” Fear of failure often\u00a0masquerades\u00a0as “Perfectionism.”<\/p>\n

Every now and then, my father and I have these deep philosophical discussions. During one of these, he helped me realize something about myself. I do NOT believe in failure! When I look back over my 22 years in business (which I’m celebrating this month), I see no failures. None. Sure, I’ve tried things that didn’t “work” the way I’d hoped. \u00a0But even the ideas that didn’t strike it big and even the “less-than-perfect choices” were valuable learning experiences.<\/p>\n

This is how I see it… you try something, it doesn’t work the way you wanted it to, so you tweak and adjust until you find the combination that clicks. Life is one big laboratory of learning. And owning your own business is one of the richest laboratories of all. Feedback on whether you’ve found the right combination reflects swiftly in your bottom line. Because profits are such a tangible thermometer, you have a lot more incentive to tweak until you get it right.<\/p>\n

Yet, there’s one other ingredient you need for this philosophy to work — Determination!<\/strong> I never, ever quit. In my vocabulary, QUIT is a four-letter word. I might realize an idea, method or system isn’t going to work, and lay it aside. But giving up on my business is not an option!<\/p>\n

There are no failures, only experiments.<\/strong> These experiments all have a purpose:<\/p>\n