Be better at failing

So I had this come across my inbox the other day, and I finally got around to reading it.  I generally will glance over a blog like this in about 10 seconds to decide if I want to read it, but this post leads out with the title – Business Lessons from the Land of Hard Knocks and the opening paragraphs

I wrote this three years ago  after burning through my family’s life savings in a failed startup, but never posted or published it – as frankly it hurt too much.

After all, no one ever dreams at the end of the ride, they’ll be wondering whether they should put a bullet in their head so their family can collect the life insurance to pay the bills – or that they’ll be forced to rip their family from Sunny San Diego and relocate to the mid-south.

I was obligated to read.  And to be quite honest, I feel like the rest of his post didn’t do his lead in justice, I was expecting some very raw emotional story, but instead he gives us a list, which is also nice, just not as dramatic 🙂

The list is really about failure, and getting better at it.  I think someone who fails well, will ultimately succeed.  Failing can make you shrewd, smart, and insightful, and as an entrepreneur / business person, you need those skills.  Frankly, that’s why there is so much value in entrepreneurship, there is rarely a safety net or a nice big hug at the end of a failure, you get the lesson in its most raw form.  It’s kind of like golf, where when you get to the end, and you look back and you failed, there may have been some circumstances that didn’t help, but in the end, you can only blame yourself.  It was, after all, your business.

So go read Kevin Mireles’ list of 7 things he learned, and be better, because while failure is valuable, it still hurts.