Mindset Shift: Embrace Failure

Welcome to the OPPO FLOW Storybook. 

Each week I fly an entertaining and motivating story that provides actionable items to inspire growth towards your success and happiness.

The weekly flights bring you one of the following:

A MINDSET SHIFT to prepare for opportunity and build better habits towards success. 🤯

Or…

AN OPPORTUNITY STORY sharing inspirational pivotal moments from someone’s life that changed their trajectory in a positive way. 🚀

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The SuccessFlow Podcast mission is simple. To relay findings, stories, highlights, and frameworks to help relentless humans continue defining Success for themselves.

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Unpopular Opinion: I’d rather lose more than I win.

UHH… WHAT?!

But, isn’t winning what we should all be striving for?

YES, and NO.

If I win, I’ve achieved what I set out to do.

PERFECT!

However, the way I see it…

…it’s what happens before I win that is more important than winning in and of itself. Reflecting on the failures I endured in getting that win.

This gives the opportunity to learn and grow.

Success is temporary.

You can get complacent after winning when you think it’ll keep happening over and over again.

After a win, without reflection, change, or adaptation, you risk losing that same success in the long run and those big losses can come swiftly.

The most successful people don’t stop at the first sign of success.

When they’ve achieved their goals, they identify new ones that will potentially take them to new heights.

They do this by finding the areas that need improvement to continue that success.

Achieving success is not a perfect process.

Winning can mask those faults, errors, or mistakes that could eventually derail you in the future.

Be sure to spend the time reflecting after a win to find things to work on and get better each day.

There are two types of failures as you define your own perception of success.

1. Failing because you don’t care or are not trying hard enough.

2. Failing because you continue to challenge yourself on purpose.

The former gives you a ZERO PERCENT chance of achieving it.

The latter is required for GREATNESS.

The Unpopular Opinion above only makes sense if your mindset is on the latter.

Challenge yourself on purpose to strive for consistent growth and ensure your successes are not temporary.

Let me provide a few examples of what this looks like…

Going for the NO, means that you’ve switched your mindset to overcome your fears of failure when you don’t get the sale.

When you make 10 calls, and get 9 No’s, you won’t get discouraged.

Be okay with the rejection, learn from your mistakes, try different variations of how you’re helping to solve a problem, and ultimately success will follow.

And as any great salesperson knows, “It’s never a no, it’s always a not yet.”

• Struck out in the bottom of the 9th? ⚾

• Missed the game winning shot? 🏀

• Dropped the ball on 4th down? 🏈

• Cramped up 100m out? 🏃

• Kicked left of the goal? ⚽🥅

• Slipped on the ice? 🏒

• Bogeyed the 18th? ⛳

• Just got beat? 😔

Reflecting on all of these experiences to learn from, will only help you grow stronger, and improve with more determination to prepare for the next opportunity.

You will have great shows and some not so great. 🎤

Use the flops to your advantage.

Use the experience as inspiration for your art. Write a song, or play tune about overcoming challenges and persevering through failure, turning your setback into creative fuel.

Shift your focus from a single performance to your overall journey.

Your ability to bounce back from this strengthens your resilience.

When you put a new dish out there, you put yourself out there for potential scrutiny.

This is the epitome of challenging yourself on purpose to find out what you’re capable of.

Remaining open-minded and receptive to feedback from both customers and your team, understand that different palates have different preferences.

Engage with your customers to let them know that their feedback is valued.

Then, consider whether the combination of flavors and ingredients truly aligns with your vision and culinary philosophy.

If it aligns, don’t discard the dish entirely.

Instead, make adjustments based on the feedback received.

Those are just some general examples of how you can not only survive after failure, but embrace it for future success.

In life, it’s important to continue growth and challenge yourself, even if you’re already winning.

When you find something that works well, be sure to reflect on why it’s working and what you can do to adapt and improve for future success.

Just because you’ve mastered one thing, does not mean you will have success for the rest of time.

Reaching one level, means there’s always another level to get to.

When you try new things along the way, you may find that it didn’t go so well or as well as you had hoped.

THAT’S OK!

Again, failure is a good thing. These are the stepping stones to success.

When you fail, you have the opportunity to try again with more knowledge than you had before.

Embrace FAILURE.

This means you have a GROWTH MINDSET.  

Welcome it.

When you have passion, purpose, and take action towards your perception of success, failing along the way is inevitable.

Success doesn’t stop at achieving the end goal. It’s continual improvement.

It’s your losses, not your wins, that provide the framework to excel.

As you improve from those experiences and continue to push forward, there is nothing more motivating when you see progress in meaningful work.

This is PREPARATION for when life throws you curveballs…

…HIT HOMERUNS. ⚾

This is the MINDSET SHIFT. 🤯

GOOD LUCK!

Until our next FLIGHT, enjoy your Song of the Week! 👇

Remember, Opportunity is Everywhere!!

Cheers! Steven

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