Advice I Give Myself

Last week I was lucky enough to hear Eric Galen speak on entrepreneurship at a Free Lunch Friday event. About to go into the logistics of having or starting a business, he changed tactics and talked instead about enjoying the ride, collaboration, and the likeliness of failure.

We are always striving. Many times we are so focused on the outcome of our efforts that we overlook the joy in pursuing our dreams and the little things we can do for ourselves along the way. Do not focus on worry, which in and of itself is useless and unproductive.  Enjoy yourself, no matter where you are on your path to your goals. Many successful business people look back and long for simpler times. Enjoy wherever you are in your life and always make time for things and people you love.

Our society values independence and self-reliance. Although it is important to do what you can for yourself, human beings need human contact. We need to bounce ideas off one another, we need to help one another. None of us can be good at every single thing or do it all, all the time.  Eric emphasized the need for collaboration, how we cannot do it alone, and how no one makes it to the top without help from others along the way. Use your strengths to help others and reach out to others with strengths that can help you. Surround yourself with supportive people so that on a bad day you are quickly lifted up.

Failure…one of my biggest fears… I was so thankful Eric touched on this subject. Why I, and so many others, are so scared of it doesn’t seem to make sense considering how common it is and how resilient we are. We need to find hope in the likeliness of failure. Failure is not final. It teaches us what will and won’t work. It teaches us perseverance. It teaches us to expand and grow and learn. Eric explained that success is always highlighted in the media. We don’t see the failures of our most successful idols and this seems to create self-doubt when we ourselves are experiencing set-backs. There is comfort in knowing it is a likelihood. He discussed how the greatest artists and musicians write thousands of songs only to have 10 or 12 on an album or one song in a movie. Failure is nothing more than a part of the process, and most of the things we perceive as failures are just learning steps along the way.

These concepts can be applied to business but are just as important in any area of your life. So enjoy your ride in life, reach out to others, and see every failure as apart of your learning curve. I wish you great success in every area of your life, and so would Eric Galen.

Many thanks to him and the folks at Free Lunch Fridays.