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Confessions of a Failure
Think of the business people you know to be highly successful. They may represent different kinds of businesses, even non-profits. They probably represent different sizes of businesses – from a one person solopreneurship to multi-national conglomerates. They likely do entirely different things from manufacturing and selling products to offering personal services – and everything in between. What is the first thing most of them have in common? Most of them, at one time or another, have failed. Some of their failures are highly visible – and legend (think Donald Trump running for political office.) Some of their failures are never to be spoken of (meaning we have no idea what they are.) In some cases they lost millions of dollars or years of time. What is the second thing those who failed have in common? They all learned from their experiences – and tried again – and found themselves succeeding far beyond what they might have achieved otherwise. Why? Because they all learned – very well – the hard way. True confessions: In the early 1980s, I started a crafting business where I made stuff and sold it at flea markets and craft fairs. I had a blast! But I ended up FAR in the hole because I didn’t understand how my time equated to making enough money to keep myself afloat. As a business woman, I was a failure. A few years later, I started and built a publishing business, just as desktop publishing was beginning to make the scene. Now that I better understood how time equated to income, I was able to price and plan my work, even hire staff to help. My marketing knowledge helped us grow very fast, and very strong. It was a thriving business, going very well – UNTIL – I took on a business partner who turned out to be a shyster, who cooked the books, and who forced me to close the business. A nightmare! It took me years to recover from that experience. After that I began to read everything I could get my hands on about entrepreneurship and building…