No Excuses
June 22nd 2009 16:26
A common theme I have noticed when talking to failed entrepreneurs is the excuse factory. What is the excuse factory? Well it is the part of our brains that tries to justify anything we do, usually in relationship to failures. I'm sure everyone reading this post at one time or another has justified some self failing, whether it is the inability to keep your News Years Resolutions or why a diet failed. What I have found is that the successful entrepreneurs make no excuses. If they fail they learn from the mistake and move on, but they always accept the full responsibility and never, ever put the blame on anything or anyone else.
I recently had an apprentice who failed to meet a very important goal by deadline. Sometimes these things happen, though successful entrepreneurs rarely let it occur, it is inevitable you will fail at some point to meet a goal. His response to missing the deadline told me if he would succeed at being the self reliant self employed person he is trying to become. His response when I asked him why the goal was not met; "I failed to back up my work, next time I will have it on at least one other drive." His Hard drive had failed. It happens, and he learned a valuable lesson from it. His response was good; he screwed up, should have had a back-up and is working on catching back up (no pun intended).
This individual will still make mistakes and as entrepreneurs we cannot be afraid of them, they are a big part of life. But we must learn from each one, and try to make sure that the mistakes we make do not stop us from reaching our goals. I have a business partner who is tasked with selling advertisements. In the current economy it is not an easy task. Most of his work contacts are in outlook. His laptop pretty much ate itself. Again these things happen (seemingly too often). But man was he on it. He had piles of business cards, he went through old invoices, stayed up all night going through old notebooks, and working without IT support to get the phone numbers and names for his meetings the next day. He did not miss a beat. He took control of the situation and kicked it back into shape. He could have thrown his hands in the air and waited for a new laptop, and missed meetings and lost business, but he wouldn't let it happen. And this not letting "fate" dictate the terms are what will ultimately make him successful.
Another former business partner of mine let himself fail. He emailed me a day after an article was due to let me know it would not be done in time because his computer had crashed. Of course he was obviously doing this from a computer because it came in the form of an EMAIL. The truth was his computer had died and he was just getting it back up. So what. Find another way to make it happen. If you have to go to the library and rewrite the whole thing right up until deadline, JUST DO IT. No excuses, ever. When you fail, it is because you allowed it to happen, not because of any external circumstance, always, yes always.
What about getting seriously injured, or a death in the family, or a natural disaster or....? Life happens, be prepared, have back-ups, have plans in case you are are involuntarily hijacked or otherwise "distracted". Have back-ups for your back-ups, have partners who can cover for you when needed, but most importantly get as far ahead of the plan as possible whenever you can, so that when life gets in the way, it is not even an issue, the world just gets to catch up to you for a little while.
I recently had an apprentice who failed to meet a very important goal by deadline. Sometimes these things happen, though successful entrepreneurs rarely let it occur, it is inevitable you will fail at some point to meet a goal. His response to missing the deadline told me if he would succeed at being the self reliant self employed person he is trying to become. His response when I asked him why the goal was not met; "I failed to back up my work, next time I will have it on at least one other drive." His Hard drive had failed. It happens, and he learned a valuable lesson from it. His response was good; he screwed up, should have had a back-up and is working on catching back up (no pun intended).
This individual will still make mistakes and as entrepreneurs we cannot be afraid of them, they are a big part of life. But we must learn from each one, and try to make sure that the mistakes we make do not stop us from reaching our goals. I have a business partner who is tasked with selling advertisements. In the current economy it is not an easy task. Most of his work contacts are in outlook. His laptop pretty much ate itself. Again these things happen (seemingly too often). But man was he on it. He had piles of business cards, he went through old invoices, stayed up all night going through old notebooks, and working without IT support to get the phone numbers and names for his meetings the next day. He did not miss a beat. He took control of the situation and kicked it back into shape. He could have thrown his hands in the air and waited for a new laptop, and missed meetings and lost business, but he wouldn't let it happen. And this not letting "fate" dictate the terms are what will ultimately make him successful.
Another former business partner of mine let himself fail. He emailed me a day after an article was due to let me know it would not be done in time because his computer had crashed. Of course he was obviously doing this from a computer because it came in the form of an EMAIL. The truth was his computer had died and he was just getting it back up. So what. Find another way to make it happen. If you have to go to the library and rewrite the whole thing right up until deadline, JUST DO IT. No excuses, ever. When you fail, it is because you allowed it to happen, not because of any external circumstance, always, yes always.
What about getting seriously injured, or a death in the family, or a natural disaster or....? Life happens, be prepared, have back-ups, have plans in case you are are involuntarily hijacked or otherwise "distracted". Have back-ups for your back-ups, have partners who can cover for you when needed, but most importantly get as far ahead of the plan as possible whenever you can, so that when life gets in the way, it is not even an issue, the world just gets to catch up to you for a little while.
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