Whether winter, spring, summer or fall, success should always be in season. That said, there is a special art to “falling” forward during this quarter of the year. Some may identify the time in which we are finding our businesses and ourselves to be among the bleakest or most challenging of all. Fruitfulness may be threatened, and the uncertainty of the times may cause some company owners, businessmen and women to hide out instead of taking full advantage.
As an industry leader in video production, BizVid Communications has some light to shed on this topic. For many athletes, “falling forward” is the key to victory. We will use this analogy to present our thoughts from your business point of view.
One sport that comes to mind is snow skiing.
Since this activity is in full force during this part of the year, the comparison bears even more weight. In skiing terms, understanding the “fall line” is crucial to making a successful run. Regarding skiing, the dictionary defines a “fall line” as the line of direct descent down a hill. Wikipedia tells us that if a skier falls, they may require assistance in righting themselves to get back to the fall line.
Our business analogy should be making itself clear by now. By using your business balance to “lean into” what others may see as a threat of failure, “falling forward” will be yours, and otherwise, businessmen and women will make a spectacular run for your organization or company.
What others are saying?
This is the point in our blogs, in which we typically offer some similar insights for other industry leaders through articles and quotes.
Forbes magazine discusses why failing is an important part of success. (https://www/fprbes/cp,sotes/forbesbusinesscouncil) In this article, Forbes, as well as Reuters, use a couple of known athletes to prove their point. Interestingly, their sports track and boxing share the “falling forward” analogy with skiing and require forward balance as one of their elements to success.
Believe it or not, failure is a part of life. You get knocked down by life sometimes, but how you react matters.
Do not limit yourself because of the fear of failure. World-renowned sprinter Usain Bolt has said, “I don’t think limits.” I believe the fear of failure limits many people who might have been successful if they had tried. After boxer Anthony Joshua lost to Oleksandr Usyk in a fight, he shared on social media, “I’ve watched the fight, analyzed my preparations & identified my mistakes,” Reuters reported. “I’ve learned my lesson … Don’t worry about me. My spirit is strong!”
In every process of reaching a goal, you will encounter challenges. Sometimes, not all challenges lead to success, but when you accept failure as part of the process, you will be encouraged never to give up. Try again and again and again until you reach your goal.
Forbes concluded by saying that failures often lead to success (BizVid Communications might paraphrase by using the words “failing forward”) because they allow you to test and try what doesn’t work to discover what does. Experiencing failure might be painful initially, but without it, you may miss many benefits it can bring, including these ways that failures can lead to success: Getting space to redirect and innovate.
A predominate website known as LifeOptimizer.com offers several reasons why failure (aka falling forward) is the key to success. This one stood out to BizVid:
Success Lies in Seeing Failure as a Tool
Just as all the greats have something in common, so too do the true “failures” of life: their inability to use failure as a tool. When you feel that sinking, desperate sensation known as failure and you take it to heart, you diminish yourself. You give your power away to an external event. Success is about learning how to recognize why you failed, and how you’re going to compensate for it.
I find it helpful to ask myself the following questions upon failures, big and small.
- What brought about the failure?
- How much of it is in my realm of influence?
- How can I use my influence to turn failure into success?
- What steps do I need to go through to try again?
- What can I do every day to ensure that my next try is done more intelligently?
Blog articles in Psychology Today (https://www/psychologytoday.com/us/blog) further support the value of failing or “falling forward.” Their article entitled “The Benefits of Failure” expounds.
We live in a competitive society that has big winners and big losers. Educators, motivation experts, life coaches, sports psychologists, and other mentors mainly teach us how to approach success and be winners. Few teach us a much more valuable lesson—coping with failure.
A society that worships winners tends to make horrible choices, whether considered from a moral or a practical perspective. Consider the widespread practice of preferring job applicants with a near-perfect grade point average over those with more varied scores.
The conventional view is that someone with a near-perfect GPA will become a near-perfect employee. Yet, there is a glaring flaw in this reasoning. A straight-A student is not a perfect person but someone who has never done badly in a course. This means that they have never really been tested. If they have not been tested to the extent of receiving at least some weak grades, then they have also missed out on learning to cope with failure. (AKA learning to “fail forward.”)
BizVid’s summary statement.
In closing, your video-producing partner, BizVid Communications, would like to remind you of a well-known proverb that states, “A righteous person will fall seven times but rise again.” In BizVid terms for this autumn, master the art of “falling forward,” and you will discover your competitive edge.