We all endure failure.

    Failure is a teacher if we deal with it correctly.

    Therefore, within each failure lies potential.

    But potential is useless unless it’s fulfilled.

    There’s a quote attributed to Einstein:

        “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

    Whether or not he said it doesn’t matter.  What matters is to recognise what it’s telling us.  As James Clear encourages us in “Atomic Habits“, we should “try, fail, learn, try differently“.

    But is it enough to learn from your own failures?

    What if you’re coasting without really challenging yourself?

    What if you’re lucky and skating on thin ice without knowing it?

    What if you’re getting older and have less runway ahead of you on which to make mistakes?

    How about supplementing your own failures with the failures of others?  Imagine if you could avoid pitfalls and/or seize opportunities from the experience of others?

    Imagine being able to say to someone: “I’m thinking of doing [x].  Have you tried it?  How did it go?

    How do you do this? How do you connect with peers who are dealing with similar challenges to you?

    It begins with humility and openness.  If you don’t have both of those then forget it.

    But, if you do have those, then it’s about tactics – maybe a business club, or your chamber of commerce, or a mastermind group, or an online community, or…

    And you’ll find out what tactics work best for you by, you guessed it, trying one, seeing if it works, tweaking or changing it if it doesn’t, and trying differently!

PS:  If you want to receive content like this blog in my twice-weekly email, sign up here and you’ll also get my ebook for (too) busy business-owners – “Get Off The Hamster Wheel: The Smart Small Business Owner’s Productivity Bible“.