Failure is how you grow.
This is a lesson I first learned from my mentor Jon Williams many years ago. We were reflecting on my most recent job at the time, and he asked me about the big mistakes I’d made. I proudly said “I didn’t make mistakes – I did what I was told to do”, and he said “Ohhhh, there’s your problem!”. I was so confused, as I thought my job was to meet expectations and that failing was bad (an attitude most of us learn in school).
Jon went on to explain that you never know how much you are capable of unless you occasionally take on more than you can handle, and fail. Otherwise, you are playing it too safe (only signing up for jobs you know you can do) and never truly testing yourself. He shared that he regularly failed at his jobs and that was part of how he had grown to become a multiple-time CTO.
If you want to hear his wisdom in his own words, he will be a panelist discussing Learning From Failure: Embracing Setbacks as Valuable Growth Lessons this Thursday, Oct. 17th at 10:15am PT. Check it out!