That’s the name of a “game” a good friend of mine used to play with her kids every dinner time.

Every evening as they sat together eating, each member of the family would have to share something they “failed” at during that day. The attempt would be celebrated by all – whether it was “I failed my spelling test” or “I failed to close a new client”. The “failure” would be discussed, lesson learnt from it would be verbalised and an action plan for how to do it better next time would be made. The only way to “lose” the game was to have failed at nothing. 

“Weird game to play with kids” you’re probably thinking… But actually, I think it’s pretty smart. You see, it’s not actually failure itself that usually prevents people from achieving their goals. It’s fear of failure. What my friend did here, by playing this game, was take the “fear” of failure away and get everyone comfortable, not only with failing, but with openly declaring that failure and evaluating what they learnt from it. 

As a business owner, failure is probably something you’re very familiar with. You can’t run a business of any significant size without a few failures along the way. But how do you feel about failure? Do you view it as a good thing? A learning experience to be embraced? Just a part of life as a business owner? Or do you view it as a negative? Something to be ashamed of? Something to hide? Something to be avoided? 

The world-famous basketball player, Michael Jordan, is the perfect example of failing your way to success. When asked about his success he once said; “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

What if every time you “failed” you accepted that failure, evaluated it, learnt from it and tried again with more knowledge? What if you took 9000 shots at your goal? Do you think you’d succeed? I do… 

Now, as a business owner myself, I am no stranger to failure. I’ve had my fair share of ups and downs. I’ve been in the freight business myself for over 35 years, I’ve so many stories I could tell. But I’d love to hear some of your stories? Do you have any great “failures” that became part of your story of success? 

I’d love to hear about it…