Learning to Fail

In one of our recent classes we talked about how you have to learn to fail in order to learn how to win. As an athlete I could not agree more with this statement and I can really see how it relates to selling. From a sports perspective failure is a vital part of success. It is in the moments that you fail where you learn the most about yourself and what kind of person you are going to be. This is also true in the sales world. Most people try to steer away from places where they might fail. This could be because they are afraid to fail or they are afraid of rejection. As much as those types of moments may be scary, there is actually so much value in them. When you fail you can see what you did wrong and use that experience to learn and grow. For example if you were in a sales situation the fails you can look back and reflect on where you might have gone wrong. You could even ask why you didn’t get the sale.  Learning more and more about your failures will only give you more information about what you could do better. Another great point that Prof Sweet brought up in class about failure is that there is a difference in dealing with failure intellectually and emotionally. If you deal with failure emotionally then you will probably lose the courage to go out and do whatever it is that you failed at. On the other side, if someone deals with failure intellectually, they develop the capacity to be able to reflect on their failures and learn from them. Overall failure should not be seen as a negative thing but it should be looked at as something that is needed for growth.