Failure Sucks
Failure can really suck. It’s embarrassing. It derails your confidence. It can be held over your head for months to come.
But when failure happens, it can be an extremely valuable asset.
Some of Team834 were asked to be co-hosts for Generation Grand’s twitter chat about failure on Wednesday night. This was in anticipation of the upcoming PRSSA Failure:LAB event in April. We shared our thoughts on failure, and were able to engage with some great people about how we all deal with it, experience it, and make it through.
Here are some highlights of the discussion:
Twitter chats are actually a thing, and they’re fun! They’re also a great way to connect with people. (Okay this one isn’t exactly about failure, but we thought we’d share for those of you who aren’t up to speed on the Twitterverse)
- Failure doesn’t mean you’re bad at your job. A lot of people equate failure with a lack of skill or intelligence, but that is far from the truth. Failure means that you tried something, which shows you are willing to take a risk.
- Failure for us involves a lot of swearing, alcohol, and pizza rolls, and that’s okay. Having a momentary breakdown is totally acceptable as long as you keep it at a moment and you then buck up and move on.
- There is always an opportunity to learn from a failure, and it gives you new perspectives that can be leveraged. Be sure you find and leverage the learning opportunity in each of your failures.
- When we fail, we find inspiration in others around us. We surround ourselves with successful people who hopefully rub off a bit and pull us up, and we educate ourselves on the badass people that have come before us.
- PR pros need to have resilience, drive, confidence, and a decent sense of humor to be able to effectively recover from a failure.
All and all, failure is a part of life. We all experience it. It’s everything from forgetting your wallet, to missing a deadline at work or having a relationship break up. It’s how you move on from failure that sets you apart, we like to see that some many of us are willing to accept failure and use it to improve ourselves. Also, we learned that pizza rolls always help in every situation.
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