{"id":2876,"date":"2011-04-12T18:58:20","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T18:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=2876"},"modified":"2011-04-12T18:58:20","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T18:58:20","slug":"how-to-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/how-to-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"How to fail"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Fail\" src=\"http:\/\/nicholsonsocialmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/welcome_to_fail.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"274\" height=\"266\" \/>There are some significant  misunderstandings about failure. A common one, similar to one we seem to  have about death, is that if you don&#8217;t plan for it, it won&#8217;t happen.<\/p>\n<p>All of us fail. Successful people fail often, and, worth noting, learn more from that failure than everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>Two habits that don&#8217;t help:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Getting good at avoiding blame and casting doubt<\/li>\n<li>Not signing up for visible and important projects<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>While it may seem like these two choices increase your chances for  survival or even promotion, in fact they merely insulate you from  worthwhile failures.<\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s worth noting that my definition of failure does not  include  being unlucky enough to be involved in a project where random  external  events kept you from succeeding. That&#8217;s the cost of showing  up, not the  definition of failure.<\/p>\n<p>Identifying these random events, of course, is part of the art of  doing ever better. Many of the things we&#8217;d like to blame as being out of  our control are in fact avoidable or can be planned around.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Here are six random ideas that will help you fail better, more often and with an inevitably positive upside:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Whenever possible, take on specific projects.<\/li>\n<li>Make detailed promises about what success looks like and when it will occur.<\/li>\n<li>Engage others in your projects. If you fail, they should be involved and know that they will fail with you.<\/li>\n<li>Be really clear about what the true risks are. Ignore the vivid,  unlikely and ultimately non-fatal risks that take so much of our focus  away.<\/li>\n<li>Concentrate your energy and will on the elements of the project that  you have influence on, ignore external events that you can&#8217;t avoid or  change.<\/li>\n<li>When you fail (and you will) be clear about it, call it by name and  outline specifically what you learned so you won&#8217;t make the same mistake  twice. People who blame others for failure will never be good at  failing, because they&#8217;ve never done it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If that list frightened you, you might be getting to the nub of the  matter. If that list feels like the sort of thing you&#8217;d like your  freelancers, employees or even bosses to adopt, then perhaps it&#8217;s  resonating as a plan going forward for you.<\/p>\n<p>Seth Godin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are some significant misunderstandings about failure. A common one, similar to one we seem to have about death, is that if you don&#8217;t plan for it, it won&#8217;t happen. All of us fail. Successful people fail often, and, worth noting, learn more from that failure than everyone else. Two habits that don&#8217;t help: Getting &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/how-to-fail\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,143],"tags":[113,853,1193,505,1192,1191,1194,1190],"class_list":["post-2876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-sethgodin","tag-fail","tag-failure","tag-failure-is-good","tag-learn","tag-misunderstood","tag-misundertanding","tag-successful-people-fail","tag-worthwhile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2876"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2879,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions\/2879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}