
One of the most popular personal development cliches is to embrace failure. Fail forward. Fail over and over again so we may improve our skills.
On a recent phone call with my friend and business mentor, we discussed the vitality of challenges. He brought up Jocko Willink’s famous concept: ‘Good.’
My friend and his team recently underwent a huge transition in their business, with him taking on a bigger leadership position. He was telling me about the newest obstacles on his plate: maneuvering the varying values among teammates, finding the best practices for communication, and finding bigger and better clients.
As he laid all this out I couldn’t help but think: Good for you.
As I told him this, I explained that he’s becoming a wildly better leader. He’s experiencing stress tests. No one improves by doing the same thing every day and never being challenged.
I tell the same thing to my fellow coaches all the time.
Many coaches hesitate to take action because they’re afraid of looking dumb, having an awkward conversation or encounter, or not coaching well. I’ve experienced all of these and it sucked every time.
But it was after blunders like these where I felt the most growth in my skills as a coach and as a business owner.
People think they should get better before taking action so they make fewer mistakes. That’s backwards. We must first take action and make a ton of mistakes, for that’s the only way to get better.
The next time something challenging comes up in our lives, we can sit back and think, Good.