Countless quotes will tell you that failure is good for you, but quotes are words, and words, to be believed, must be put to action. Our at-the-time intern, now flourishing account manager, Victoria Reyna (soon to be Varville), wrote a blog when she began with the company that talked about failure as the pathway to greatness. She shared how it was one of our company’s core values and something that she could really get behind. I had that on my mind today, which is ironic, considering its her three-year anniversary as a full-time team member at S&O (Happy workiversary, V!). You can read her past post here, and I’ll put my spin on the value.
One of my graduate degree professors said on an obscene number of occasions, “You know what you know, you know what you don’t know, and you don’t know what you don’t know.” I used to just think after every time she said it – All I know is that I don’t know what you’re talking about. But the more I live, the more I work, the more I’m able to daily pursue my passion in my career, the more I understand and live out that quote, which is directly related to failing and succeeding.
Recognize the things you are good at – sharpen them, make them better, keep being a badass in that arena. Understand that there are PLENTY of things that you don’t know. I’m not a numbers whiz. I’m not quite sure how I got through calculus in high school. I do not know how to speedily configure math or science-related solutions to problems, and I’m okay with that. I’ve come to accept that there are individuals far better than this at me, thank God, and realizing this has helped to improve our business – because we hire professionals, whether contractors, vendors, or our team, who have experience in the realms that I (or other members of our team) are not great at.
The last piece is the piece, I believe, that relates most directly to failure on the pathway to greatness. And the more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. It’s a humbling and challenging revelation, but also an exciting one. This means – we get to figure things out along the way. The more we fail at them, the closer we get to that success.
The trial and error…and then the success…is the adventure – whether in business or in life. We encourage you to keep your failure constant, for success is waiting for you on the horizon.