Everyone is very quick to share their successes. This is what we most often see on social media when people portray their lives to be flawless. However, being vulnerable in the sense that you can open up to others about the reality that a lot of the things you will attempt will result in failure is a masterful quality to possess. Being open and honest about your experiences, both successes and failures, will allow you to reach and influence more people and also better learn from and reflect on your experiences. This is a lesson that I’ve learned in 2022 and I plan on taking it far along with me into 2023 and beyond.
Fearing the embarrassment of failure
The biggest reason why most people don’t open up to others about their failures, including myself in the past, is that they are afraid that others will think less of them because of their failure. The truth of the situation is that being open and honest about what went wrong when things go south has the opposite effect of what you would think it would. If you surround yourself with the right community, opening up in this way will allow them to help you workshop what went wrong so it doesn’t happen again. Just simply going through the process of what went wrong out loud to a group of people who may have ideas on how to clean up the process can be invaluable when being weighed against the failure itself. Getting over this fear is how you level up, make connections, spread value to others, and become a better version of yourself. Understanding this and getting over the feeling of embarrassment can literally be a life changing experience.
Owning both success and failure
The first thing people want to do when they experience a win or a success is share it with others. They want to go online and post about it for the world to see. They want to talk about it with their friends and family in the hopes that they will think more highly of them. The truth is that if you aren’t open and honest about both your successes and failures, you will fail to connect with those around you on a more human level. Struggle is part of the journey and sharing with people how you overcame that struggle is just as valuable as sharing the failures you faced during your journey along the way. Too many people on the internet make things look a lot easier than they are. Gurus make false promises and try to make money by selling you the idea that whatever skill they are teaching is simple, easy, and will make you money in no time. These gurus are often trying to sell you a product rather than preparing you for the journey ahead. When you’re real and extremely raw in your approach to others in the way you discuss your experiences, people gravitate towards that. You have a lot more to offer them and you can aid in managing reasonable expectations while at the same time being extremely aggressive with your goals. The more open and transparent you are about your journey, the better off you’ll be in terms of learning lessons from your experiences and making valuable real world connections with others.
Opening up
Just last week, I had a deal I had been working on for the better part of 5 months fall apart right before closing. Obviously, this is a big failure and holds a lot of weight given the money and time we’ve put into the deal. Because of the people around me, I was able to build the confidence in myself to go out and be super transparent about this failure and what it has taught me. My partner Nick and I hosted a zoom meeting last weekend in which we invited members of our private real estate community called Subto. In that zoom, we examined every step of the deal and all its twists and turns from start to finish live on camera. The super raw nature of what we did made it extremely beneficial for the reason of me simply being able to collect my thoughts and say them out loud unfiltered. The conversation and brainstorming we all did together on what went wrong and what we could’ve done better was invaluable during this zoom call. It was obvious we were being super transparent and vulnerable and people appreciated that. Everyone involved in that meeting got a tremendous amount of value and it was all because we were open and honest about our experiences. If you embrace this concept, it can change your life and endlessly bring more value to you and those around you.