Accept & Learn From Your Failures

Particularly for us women, media is playing a big, big role. From small teenagers on, we have all those magazines promoting perfect bodies. All those influences promoting a perfect Instagram of a life. Honestly, this is our biggest influence, but if we see behind it, if we start realizing that it’s only the tip of the iceberg, we also see “okay, all those people that have normal lives as well”. They have challenges as we have and it’s not what it looks at first sight.

So I think this is quite an important part, but unfortunately, it takes most of us ages to realize it. In my thirties, I started to realize that I want the life that I want and it has nothing to do with lives I see promoted at the magazines and well, let alone that I haven’t watched magazines in a long, long time because I think this is not a source of [real]really inspiration for me. Think of how can I have my own environment? So how can I create my micro-culture? And we are very much influenced by the, they say, five people that surround us, that we are closest with. So pick wisely, choose people that make you become a better person that makes you grow, that inspire you and not people that, you know, make you feel worse or make you worst person even.

So that’s, that’s really my priority. And in general, you know, media, it’s much sexier to talk about other people’s mistakes, about whatever embarrassing happens. Then just talking about things that happen that make this world a better place about people that, you know, yeah, they made a mistake, but they also learned from it. And often, yeah, it’s sexy to talk about the mistake, but if the person who corrects it learns from it, this is also reported. So I think it’s being aware [of] about how society and culture [shape]shapes us as women, but also as humans and that creating our own microculture in that sense.

Why failing is part of the learning process? On the one hand, it’s, as I described it in, in my book about the dinosaur principle, it is about growing through potential mistakes that, you know, [lift] lifts us up because, with every experience we get richer, we have more alternatives how to act.

So, that’s one thing I really like to say, and it’s important because the moment we start to see [failure] failing as part of the learning process, we detach it from ourselves. It’s not us who failed. We may have made a mistake or failed at one specific thing, but that does not make us a failure. That’s so important too, to really keep in mind. And, let’s bring a man into this example, you know, Thomas Edison used to say that before he invented the light bulb, he found out 9 thousand 999 ways how to not make [the] a light bulb. And, that’s really important because, you know, this is, what’s, what also brings innovation, that often things that are mistakes we can think of, for example, the post its that came from totally other use. There, there are various examples like this.

Products that looked like a failure and then we just changed the context and it was a full success. So, failing is part of learning success, the moment we see, you know, mistakes is what add options, adds experience, adds knowledge to how not to do things. So that’s really the important part to implement.

The list is long of woman that kept hanging in there and in the end succeeded and they succeeded because they failed so often because every time they developed the ability [to stand] of standing up doing it again, better, smarter. Let’s take famous examples, you know, for example, Oprah Winfrey, she got fired when she first was a news report.

It’s a really interesting story. And that made her become the Oprah Winfrey she is today. And it’s really ironic. What was her weakness on the one hand, which was “oh, you’re too emotional”. You can’t, she was always told: “you can’t present news in a neutral way”. And now, you know, if we look at her shows now that’s exactly her strength, right? Because she is authentic and shows emotion. That’s why she makes millions of people grow with being inspired.

Well, thank you very much. It was a pleasure presenting and sharing my knowhow with the Female Founders. I’d be happy to hear from you to have your experiences and please feel free to reach out by the links shown. Click there, you will get my free ebook as well, as well as my workbook on how to tackle the mindset challenge and the failure mindset challenge.