5 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Failure

Persistance is Key

If you plan on being an entrepreneur then you better recognize that it’s a life choice. This is a career. It’s not a hobby. You will mess up and you will make stupid mistakes at some point in your career. You’ll do something so bone headed stupid that you’ll be embarrased to come into work the next day. But guess what, you’ll still have to go. You don’t have to go because a boss is expects you to go. You have to go because your livelihood depends on it.

You only make mistakes if you’re really trying

The only people that don’t make mistakes are the people that never step out of their comfort zones and try something new. If your going to be an entrepreneur your going to have to try lots of new things. This means your going to probably make more mistakes than you can possibly imagine. This means your trying! It means you give a sh*t! That’s a good thing and shouldn’t ever get you down. They’re just bumps in the road homie. You’ll get through it.

Life goes on

Running a business, it’s really easy to think that any mistake that you make could absolutely ruin your life/business. Yes, in some cases that may be true. But 99% of the time little mistakes won’t kill you. Life will go on my friend. When you learn that you can put yourself out there, fall flat on your face like a moron, and can dust yourself off, you’ll finally understand that you can truly conquer the world. Nothing should scare you and nothing should hold you back.

Everyone makes mistakes

You’re not the only one that makes mistakes. Everyone screws up. It’s the people that don’t admit that they screwed up and don’t try to make it better that won’t make it very far. As long as you act like a normal human being (meaning not a psychopath) you’ll recognize that you screwed up, that you’re human, and everyone does it. Don’t be embarrassed by your mistakes. Tell everyone about it and be frank. People will go out of their way to help people that are honest and truly looking for help.

Plan for the worst case scenario

Mistakes are inevitable, and there are always those “unknown unknowns” (thank you Rumsfield!). So always add that safety factor into your plans! There’s just no way of knowing how you’re going to screw things up. So just play it safe and expect the unexpected (I hate when ppl say that too but it was fitting…). For example, my start up costs were nearly twice what I expected. I didn’t put in a big enough safety factor obviously! So plan on screwing up and try working it into your plan as much as you can. That way, next time around you’ll have “known unknowns” and can plan better!

Originally published at ScottKalwei.