Oct 2: Lessons from Failure

On October 2, 2018, Kasie and Shennice took on the topic of failure. Here are the show notes:

Start Something, Columbia! is brought to you by the Women’s Business Center of South Carolina at Columbia College.

Theme for the day:

Lessons from Failure

Link to Podcast

Agenda review:

• We’ll hear from Tim Bradford, one of our 1MC co-organizers and leader of tomorrow’s special education session “Lessons from Failure.”
• We’ll be talking about that exact topic including some resources on the topic.
• We’re starting a new book this month so we’ll preview that, too.
• Lastly, the podcast is up! All the back episodes you ever wanted, ready for your bingeing pleasure. We’ll give you some details as to how to access those.

Segment 1:

This week at 1 MC — Tim Bradford, 1MC Co-Organizer leads the education session “Lessons from Failure”

One of six children. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Tim is very involved in Community and Church, dedicated to being successful and helping others to do the same.

Tim has over twenty-five years of successful experience in Business Management, Business Consulting, and Marketing. He is President of The Bradford Group of Companies, LLC,  which consist of The Bradford Group Financial Service Company, The Bradford Group, a company that specializes in consulting to non-profit organizations, and for-profit companies of fifty employees or less, World Leadership and Personal Growth Institute, a company that specializes in empowering people to increase their Human Potential and quality of life through Personal Leadership Development, and Bradford Property Division, a property management company. Mr. Bradford is also COO of Premier Counseling LLC. The Bradford Group of Companies has offices in Pittsburgh PA and Columbia SC.

Education sessions happen every now and then and meet the specific expressed needs of the Columbia 1MC community. This week’s topic was suggested by some of our veteran entrepreneurs and it comes at a time when some of our newer entrepreneurs are wondering what to do about the challenges and setbacks are experiencing.

Tim — what are the primary takeaways you hope to impart in tomorrow’s group-think session? Can you share some objectives for the session? Expected outcomes?

New Book for October!

Traction: How any startup can achieve explosive growth

By Gabriel Weinberg

Key takeaway as it relates to today’s topic: Traction is about that moment when your business really starts to take off, when the customers are taking notice and the systems are in place. It’s about finding success with the fifth or sixth iteration of your minimum viable product. For today, we can focus on the three tenants of traction:

1. Make something people want to buy.
2. Market something people want to buy.
3. Scale your business.

Segment 2:

Topic of the week — Lessons from Failure

Kathy Eion blogging over at lifehack.com offers 10 lessons:

1. Accept failure, but keep trying
2. Continue forward in spite of failure.
3. Success or failure depends on your reaction to it.
4. Sometimes failure simply means changing direction.
5. Believe in yourself.
6. Sometimes failure is a chance to learn.

Brian Driscoll adds these four lessons from failure on Inc.com:

• Success can’t be bought.
• Failure is guaranteed.
• Trying leads to success.
• Success isn’t based on what you know now.

“Through analyzing failures, I’ve come to realize that no one really knows what they’re doing. We have ideas based on previous experiences and what we think will work, but we’re all just winging it.”

Then this blog makes us feel like we’re not losers:

• Failure gives us experience.
• Failure gives us knowledge.
• Failure builds resilience.
• Failure forces growth as human beings.
• Failure teaches us that success is rooted in providing value — in order to succeed, we must be providing value.

And tells us how to recover:

• Ignore the naysayers
• Understand that it’s okay to fail — as long as you get back up
• Leverage failure for future success.

12 Empowering Lessons that read like the kind of thing you’d tattoo on your arm in a foreign language:

• Failure isn’t forever.
• This, too, shall pass.
• Failure isn’t unique.
• Criticism doesn’t equal judgment.
• Not everything is about you.
• Time is the greatest teacher.
• Rejection is a powerful tool.
• Practice becomes reality.

Do you have mantras that get you through tough times?

This blog encourages us to:

• Own up to our failures.
• Change yourself, the world won’t change unless you do.
• No one knows what they’re doing.

Did you know there’s a spectrum of failure? This article from Harvard Business Review puts it like this:

From Blameworthy to Praiseworthy

• Deviance — an individual chooses to disregard protocol, standards, etc.
• Inattention — an individual inadvertently deviates from specifications
• Lack of ability — an individual doesn’t have the skills needed to successfully execute the work
• Process inadequacy — a skilled individual is not supported by an effective process
• Task challenge — an individual faces a task too difficult to execute correctly every time
• Process complexity — the process has so many moving parts that any one failure can force the entire thing to fail
• Uncertainty — a lack of clarity forces people to take seemingly reasonable action but produces inadequate results
• Hypothesis testing — a solution is designed and tested but fails
• Exploratory testing — an experiment is conducted to further knowledge or investigate results leads to an undesired outcome

So on the praiseworthy side, we’re talking about intentional, designed hypothesis testing. On the blameworthy side, sabotage or a lack of will or lack of skill that keeps the effort from succeeding.

Segment 3:

Events of the week —

1 Million Cups meets at the Richland Library tomorrow at 9 a.m. for a special education session: Lessons from Failure.

The Women’s Business Center of SC at Columbia College invites you to join us for coffee at The Local Buzz on Friday at 8:30 a.m.

The ERG Executive Summit is coming up October 19th including our 1MC buddies Tom Pietras and John Barnes as speakers. Get more information on Eventbrite.

Our friend Ron Harvey is hosting the Live 2 Lead simulcast event on October 12th. Speakers include Tyler Perry and Daniel Pink. Get more information on that on Eventbrite.

Also on October 12th, the York County Chamber of Commerce is hosting a simulcast of Leadercast Women, a program featuring women leaders including Carly Fiorina, Jenna Bush Hager and eight others. Get that information in the show notes. Link here.

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