When you become a blogger or post on social media, you offer your wisdom and opinion to others. Giving advice also comes with a particular burden because you must practice what you preach to others. Finally, your guidance has to have a positive practical effect. If you are not helping others, you are no different than a mentally ill person ranting about lizard people on a soapbox at the corner park. The business world makes me feel crazy occasionally, but this last week was insane. Each blogger, coach, scrum master, and social media poster will face a test and must rely on their advice to struggle through.
As a coach and blogger, I have repeatedly said that failure is more important than success to determine your ability to grow professionally. Failure is educational, tests your mental toughness, and motivates you to transcend those failures. I have failed plenty of times, and the experiences have made me more intelligent and wiser as a professional.
The most vital test of a person is how they respond to setbacks and failure. My partner coaches a soccer team on weekends. It means I spend my Saturday morning watching five-year-old girls kick a soccer ball around a small field. It is also a chance to watch personal growth happen in real-time. A young girl over-kicked a ball, tripped, and fell. She was stunned for a moment but realized there was a fight for possession, so she huffed at the indignity of falling, got back up, and got back into the game. Later, she would score a goal. It made me proud of her because she rose above a setback.
The business world is like those five-year-olds learning to kick a soccer ball. People fail and make mistakes. The ball does not bounce your way, or a teammate will disappoint. Unfortunately, global business is not youth soccer because you often don’t receive a juice box and encouragement from your coach after a game. Many times, you feel alone and empty. Business is ruthless when it comes to failure.
As a culture, we often trumpet success but greet failure with awkward silence. No one knows what to say when you are on your stomach with turf stains on your face. For me, the obvious answer is to say, “Get back up!” How we respond to adversity is the best measure of success.
If you excuse me, I have to clean some grass off my jersey and get back into the game.
Until next time.
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