Setbacks and Success

When it comes to achieving success, many people have a mindset that it's a smooth journey with no challenges, setbacks, or failure. Nothing is further from the truth. Setbacks and failure are part of the journey. One could argue that if you haven't experienced failures or setbacks, you're not even close to reaching your potential.

Oprah was told she was too emotional for television. LeBron lost more championships than he won. Abraham Lincoln had to make a political comeback.

There's a certain ebb and flow of success that can include the highest highs and the lowest lows. If you want to achieve success, you must be willing to risk being in the depths of the lowest lows. Every time you put yourself out there, you must accept the fact that it might not work out, but the greatest lessons happen when you're facing challenges and learning from them. Of course, there's very little benefit from facing challenges and not learning from them.

Even the greatest hitters in baseball fail at a rate of about 65%. Anything above a .300 hitter is amazing. Being able to persevere through challenges and setbacks is the key to success.

I view challenges as the calluses of success. You never meet a seasoned gardener without calluses on their hands. These aren't candidates for hand models. They have bumps and bruises on their hands. This is a great analogy for success. If you want to hire a salesperson, you don't want someone who hasn't faced challenges. You want somebody who has dealt with all kinds of objections from a variety of people and has seen every possible scenario. If you need surgery, you want a surgeon who has dealt with every possible scenario and knows how to navigate those challenges.

There's another benefit to setbacks and failures. Often, in order to find what works, you need to see what doesn't work. I've been intimately involved with marketing and digital marketing for years. One lesson I've learned is that in order to find a winning campaign, you must find out what campaign doesn't work and why.

Anytime you want to achieve a new goal, there's going to be a learning curve. You're not going to be able to get everything right the first time. Part of this process is being willing to fail.

Going back to the digital marketing and sales example, a good close rate for a salesperson and a good conversion rate for a landing page is 5%. This means you fail 95% of the time.

The truth is that it's challenging to put yourself out there only to be set up for failure, but it's not really failure—it's reframing your mindset to make sure you're learning and growing. Not everyone you ask out is going to say yes. Not everybody you go out with will turn into a second date. Not every second date will turn into a relationship. Not every relationship will turn into a decades-long marriage.

Don't take setbacks and failure personally. Setbacks and failures are not an indictment on you. If you can honestly say that you put in the effort and are willing to learn or grow from setbacks and failures, it can be one of the most valuable mindset shifts you can have. Accept what you could have done better and make those adjustments. Although not everything is your fault, there's always part of a solution that you could have handled better. Separate the parts you have control over versus what you don't have control over. Focus on the former and let go of the latter.

On a daily basis, we're not always our best selves. Sometimes we fall short. We have a short temper. We're cranky. We're in a bad mood. These can be described as micro failures. We fail all the time and aren't our best selves. Excellence is not the goal—consistency is. Allow yourself to have micro failures, but understand that it shouldn't be the norm. It should be infrequent, but understand that it's just a part of life.

Setbacks and challenges are just a part of any success journey. Embrace this fact and learn from it.