Failure.
What does that word mean to you?
Do you talk about it every day?
Does it inspire you to do better?
Or, is it something that feels ok in society to talk about because hey ‘everyone is doing it’. And, talking about failures is way better than bragging, right?
One of the common obstacles that I observe with clients (past and present) is that they don’t have the willingness to admit success. Appreciate what went right, and how far they have come. And embrace success, as its own entity.
And then I take a good look in the mirror and realize that I also don’t like to admit successes. That is something I like to keep to myself, I would much rather talk about my failures and how that has impacted me. How I have grown because of everything that didn’t work out. Heck, my last blog was about failing. So instead, today I’m sharing my thoughts on success, and I think it’s time to celebrate success. And I believe that there might be a few reasons why we don’t.
It was a fluke.
You know, right place – right time.
All of the planets aligned for a certain thing to happen. When actually, this belief is a lack of confidence. Maybe in our head, we think it’s an undeserving expectation. Maybe luck played a part in it. When in our heart of hearts, we know it wasn’t a fluke or luck. It was hard work and we are too embarrassed to celebrate it.
Here’s my story with that. In 2018, my business-life partner Vince and I put together a 10 month business academy. Once a month we brought 6 business owners together and group-coached them on 10 different topics around business. We did a few other things throughout the month as well, but the live portion was the big seller. We called it TrepLife Academy and we held it at a co-working space in downtown Calgary. Anyone who has put together something like this knows how hard it is. There are a lot of moving parts, and there are a lot of variables to make it successful. We did a lot of planning and we had a lot of meetings.
We probably had 40 conversations to get 6 sales. That in itself needs to be celebrated. And Vince and I worked on the curriculum for months, always tweaking, always adding more value. Making sure we delivered the best product possible.
You know, I never did celebrate the success of TLA. I looked at it as a failure because we only ran it once. And I think my lack of self confidence at that time was the reason why I saw failure. Looking back, we had 6 business owners in that room for 10 months. One drove all the way from Edmonton. At that time, it was an amazing co-hort of different businesses coming together to learn off each other and us. This was no fluke. And it was hard work. And everyone involved learned a ton. So, 5 years later I celebrate the success of TrepLife Academy. There was no failure here.
I believe another reason that we don’t celebrate success is because of the implication of duplication. If I succeed once, shouldn’t I be able to do it again? That’s a tall order, but it’s reality.
This marries well with my story above. I mean, celebrating TrepLife Academy once should mean we can do it again, right? Instead, I was scared if it didn’t work again. Back to that lack of self confidence. And so not celebrating the success we had with TrepLife Academy was easier than feeling inadequate if it didn’t work again.
And really, who made that rule? Because it isn’t one. So don’t even give it a second of thought. One success does not ever have to be repeated, and never diminish what has been accomplished.
My hope is that when success shines, we use it to inspire others. Embrace success, it’s contagious, not only for ourselves but for others around us.
On that note, my success this week is writing my first test with the Jay Shetty Certification School and getting 91% … 48/53 questions correct. On multiple choice, which in my past has not always been the best method for me to take exams.
I celebrate that success because somewhere out there, someone has done something and is staying quiet. Don’t stay quiet. Everyone deserves to celebrate what has worked. And that will lead to more things working, and more people talking about it. We need the contagious, inspiring energy of everyone’s success.