If you read this career advice blog with any regularity, you know that I am a big fan of SUCCESS Magazine. I read it cover to cover every month. If you’re not a subscriber, I suggest you go to www.success.com and subscribe as soon as you finish reading the career advice in this post.
The February 2011 issue of SUCCESS had a great article called “The Negative 9” by Pauline Estrem. The article was aimed at sales people, but I think it has wider applicability. Tweet 102 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “We’re all in sales. You have to sell yourself every day.”
In the article, Pauline lists nine behaviors every salesperson – and remember we’re all in sales – should avoid. Check them out…
- Failing to adequately prepare.
- Not following through on your word.
- Trash talking.
- Being fake.
- Misidentifying the prospect’s stage in decision making.
- Forcing the close.
- Neglecting the long term client.
- Shirking accountability.
- Not self analyzing.
I’m a big believer in stating things in the positive — not negative — manner so I’ve rewritten The Negative 9 in positive terms and in language that applies to anyone on the road to life and career success.
- Always prepare.
- Follow through on your word.
- Speak well of everyone you meet, or say nothing at all.
- Be authentic.
- Understand where other people are coming from .
- Allow things to take their course.
- Maintain your established relationships.
- Be accountable – to yourself and to others.
- Learn from your experiences.
There are a number of tweets in Success Tweets that make these same points. In this post, I’d like to concentrate on point 9 in both lists above. Tweet 34 in Success Tweets says, “Treat failures as the tuition you pay for success. If you have a setback, choose to react positively and learn something.”
Don’t be too hard on yourself when you fail. My best career advice is to put your energy into figuring out why you failed and then do something different. Here are four career success coach questions to ask yourself the next time you fail.
- Why did I fail? Why did I do to cause the failure?
- What could I have done to prevent the failure?
- What have I learned from this situation?
- What will I do differently the next time?
If you do this, you’ll be using failure to your advantage. In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill says, “Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.” I know it’s hard to see the benefit or opportunity in failure. But it’s there – you just have to look hard enough. It all begins by facing your failures and acting. The less you fear failure, the more career success you’ll create.
The common sense career success coach point here is simple. Successful people follow the career advice in Tweet 34 in Success Tweets. They treat failure as the tuition they pay for success. Remember, you fail only if you don’t learn something from the experience. Treat every failure as an opportunity to grow. Follow this career advice. Choose to find — and use — the learning opportunity in your failures and you will become more self confident and successful. It’s sad but true – failure often is the price you pay for becoming a career success. Don’t be afraid to fail. Facing your fear of failure — and learning from your failures will pay big dividends when it comes to your life and career success.
That’s my career advice on learning from your failures. What was your most recent failure? What did you learn from it? Please take a minute to share your story with us in a comment. As always, thank you very much for reading my musings on life and career success.
Bud
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