A master or a Beginner?

"You want to know what the difference between a master and a beginner is?

The master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried! "

Stephen McCranie

What is that one thing you wish you knew before you start your journey as an entrepreneur? That's the most frequent question people ask me, therefore I decided to share it with you.

When I started my journey as an entrepreneur, I used to see success only as black or white. When thinking about myself there were only two options; to either be a winner or a loser. Nobody ever told me that it is okay to fail. Nobody ever told me that failure is part of progress.

Let's face it; the most common blockage that people face is the fear of failure. As children, we were validated based on our achievements, and not on our creations. We were given grades that defined how excellent we were. But, we have to ask ourselves, does one person have the right to confirm our success or failure, and based on whose authority? In a world that is changing and shifting more rapidly than a teenager's body, who is the "know-it-all"? And at this point is when we realize that we have to learn how to trust ourselves and be confident.

Because we were taught to meet the expectations of an outside authority, we don't have trust in the only person we should be able to rely on; our self!. We have to "be" perfect. And since perfection is not real, it is easier to give up. It is easier to stay in our comfort zone, and it is easier to stop trying or putting in more effort. But let me make something clear for you: you are going to fail! Just as a famous quote by Colin R. Davis says: "The road to success and the road to failure are almost the exactly same"

Success is not defined as the lack of failure, but rather as the resistance to it. Your business is your creation. It is a beautiful, sometimes flawed, sometimes precisely ideal piece of art. With failure, you learn how to progress and expand. The process of success is not linear, it is cyclical, just like seasons. You can't have summer without winter, or spring without autumn.

However, when we fail we tend to hide and run away since we are trying to be perfect. That is far more harmful than to own our mistakes. We are comparing ourselves to filtered images without actually knowing what is out there. At the end of the day, the only way to achieve success is by walking from failure to failure without losing our enthusiasm and passion.

Compare yourself only to you, to who you were and who you wish to be. You are already far more successful than you were five years ago, and you will expand even more. Like yourself, your business is constantly shifting and changing. No matter how much you have achieved, you will always want more. At the end of the journey, you will see that the process is what really matters, and not the final goal.

Let's learn to own and, dare I say, love our failures because they are pathways and teachers of true success.

Written by Lana Kunstek