We often spend time wondering about the outcomes of our actions or what the future holds, but what about the experience itself?
Some aspiring entrepreneurs are afraid of failing and commitment but yet does anyone look about the experiences that come from the actions, rather than the consequences or outcomes?
There are many times in my life that I attempted to make money and start a business. As a result, some didn’t do so well you could say. I invested quite a bit of time and money but failed miserably. Many could say it was my own fault, others can blame it on the economy/ market I decided to start in. What if I told you that no matter how many times I’ve failed in the past and no matter how much money I’ve lost, I would still take the same exact path if I had to do it all over again.
The failures I’ve experienced in business only led to extraordinary amounts of experience, experience which I ensure goes to good use in my new business ventures. In other words, no matter how often you fail or what you fail at, you always win the wealth of information from your experience, information that allows you to ensure next time you don’t repeat the same mistakes. The earlier businesses you are involved in your life, from Corporate America to small ventures; the more you learn and the more recoverable is the fall, similar to trading stocks (the younger you are, the more aggressive you can be). As you get older and more experienced, your ideas become more realistic, focused and driven to be successful. There are good ideas out there that may seem far-fetched or simply unrealistic, those are the ones that you want to try NOW, while you are not dependent on the business’ success but rather dependent on your own time to see it succeed.
The experiences learned from these ventures are very valuable and should be taken to heart for the good memories but also the experience itself. We sometimes take things for granted like the feeling of business ownership, or perhaps the connections you create daily at your business that will never die, even if you close down. These connections, relationships and business partners you make along the way are not simply dependent on your ownership of your business, but they are rather your partnerships and layers of support that you have earned based on the opportunities you created through the experiences you started. These would never be if you had sat there and done nothing.
So next time you consider figuring out all the ins and outs of something before acting on it, why not actually act and build something that you learn from regardless of outcome and then use that experience elsewhere if it didn’t work.
Remember: Live your life for the experience, not the outcome.
