Michael Jordan: "I missed more than 9,000 shots in my career, I lost more than 300 games, 26 times I was asked to take the last shot, and I missed it, I failed again and again in life. And that is the reason I succeed."
Mistakes often accompany the path to successful entrepreneurship. Recognizing mistakes and taking responsibility helps entrepreneurs learn lessons and eventually succeed.
We can educate children to take responsibility from an early age. Our initial tendency is to look for guilt. So does a little boy who doesn't find his toy. He tends to blame those around him, but if he had returned the toy to its place, he would have found it easily.
Therefore, if we learn to take responsibility for our actions in life, we can correct and improve our situation.
The entrepreneur:
Takes responsibility for their actions and results, because only by recognizing our responsibility for our acts and consequences can we have the ability to improve, move forward, and achieve success.
An entrepreneur who refers to their entrepreneurial process, even if they eventually failed, as a practical school for life, in which they accumulate experiences and acquire practice in many areas that they encountered as an initiator, will also be able to move on with valuable insights.
Some people look for someone/something to blame when bad things happen to them.
If we do that, what message do we convey to children? After all, we serve as a model for them.
When we think and say that we fail because of someone or something, it means that we do not take responsibility for our failures, because we blame someone or something else for our situation. This is true even when we don't blame anyone else in person.
Blaming others for our situation indicates a lack of faith in our ability to be responsible for our destiny and success.
On the other hand, when we succeed, we attribute success to ourselves and our efforts. When we manage, we should review our approach and conclude so that we can replicate success in the future. The Israeli Air Force pilots do the same. After each flight practice, an investigation is conducted to determine whether the activity was successful and to identify areas for improvement in future performance.
An example from a kid's world:
When a child succeeds on an exam, even if we are satisfied, we should find out what brought them to success so that they can understand what they can do to continue being successful in the future. Similarly, when a child fails an exam, we should help them figure out the reasons for the failure, so that they can perform better in the future.
An example from an adult's world:
Mrs. Batya [fake name] looked for a job and found one. She was delighted about it. A week later, she was fired. Batya complained and said, "I have had the evil eye." However, a brief conversation with her revealed the following findings.
* She was late for work twice in the first week. Of course, she had good reasons for that, in her opinion.
* The first week was defined as an experience week, meaning it was a trial week for her.
* She had already argued with her manager. She, of course, thinks she was on the right side of the argument.
The recommendation for Batya: Take responsibility for your actions even if you think you are right. If you do not learn from your mistakes, you may repeat them, and you will likely find yourself fired again.
The video below, taken from one of the Rocky movies, conveys the message of taking responsibility for one's life, even in the face of difficulties. This film also conveys the message of self-belief.
We have all experienced failures and successes in our lives. The way we handle our failures will significantly impact our ability to cope with them, overcome them, and achieve success. Denial of our failures or our mistakes will not support success.
The entrepreneur:
An entrepreneur recognizes mistakes, learns from them, forgives themself, and becomes a better entrepreneur. If not, they will remain stuck and will not make progress toward achieving their goals.
Each of us makes mistakes. Mistakes are part of the entrepreneurial process because there is a reason for the saying: 'Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.'
Examples from the entrepreneurship world:
Many entrepreneurs had said that they made mistakes when they started, but those mistakes did not prevent them from continuing until they reached success. Assaf Naaman Hillel, a business advisor, said: "When I first started, I made many mistakes, but with experience, success came."
Dov Moran, a serial entrepreneur and the inventor of the USB flash drive, said in an interview with the Globes Magazine:
"There's no doubt that I would go on the same path. I am what I wanted to be with experiences and successes, the scars and hard work.
What would I change? A lot. I've made so many mistakes. I wish that I could avoid most of them. The main thing I would change is that I'd plan better before jumping into each of my projects.
That is why today I insist on hearing from entrepreneurs that come to me what their business plan is, where the obstacles are, and what their plan is to 'what would happen if?'."
When it comes to kids:
How should we perceive the mistakes of the children? And how do we help them learn from mistakes?
When a child is wrong, do they realize they are wrong? As educators, rather than being angry with them, we can explain the mistake to them. And show how to correct it. And if it can't be corrected, we'll think together about how to learn from the error so the child won't repeat it.
We should serve as guides for them from a very young age, so they can recognize their errors and, at the same time, understand that they can learn from mistakes, improve, and achieve success.
At this point, we should expand the conversation because one mistake can have many variations, and children do not always see that. As adults, we want to teach children not to repeat the same kind of mistakes and not necessarily the same specific one.
There are mistakes that children, especially teenagers, perceive as irreversible, and then they despair. Education on the importance of taking responsibility and learning from mistakes encourages children to solve their problems and remain optimistic.
When the child has difficulty forgiving themselves for their mistake, we can encourage them and explain how understanding their mistakes can help them in the future.
In business and life in general
Yossi Yassour, in his book, 'Did you also have no hot water? A guide to prevent failures in decision-making, published by Matar, writes about failure:
It is tough for us to leave at once without trying again. It's hard for us to accept the fact that we failed, and it's even more difficult for us to accept the fact that we should not have started at all," he said.
Bill Gates: "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."
On the one hand, any startup that wants to grow and thrive needs to allow mistakes to happen, and on the other hand, examine those mistakes, learn from them, and evolve.
We are talking about a culture that allows partners and workers to dare, try, and also fail.
As stated, acknowledging mistakes and taking responsibility for them is essential. Still, for this to happen, we must allow a process of learning from those failures to achieve growth.
An approach that seeks to blame, anger, and fire individuals for errors and failures does not encourage creative thinking, leadership, or involvement, and ultimately harms the chances of a startup or any other organization succeeding.
In a Facebook post, serial entrepreneur and investor Dov Moran explained why, in his opinion, the Modu company, founded in 2007, failed and shut down in 2010. In the post, he explains why he takes responsibility for the failure and concludes with the following sentence: "You failed? Get up. Shake off the sand. Understand why it happened to learn and improve. And move forward." That's precisely what he did.
