the essential art of failing
TRANSCRIPT
The essential art of failingOctober 2014
Part 1
playing it safe
Our ideas of success is
defined by our family,
popular culture and our
environment.
MBA, entrepreneur,
surfer, six-figure salary,
New York penthouse
CPA, Big4 partner,
pianist, six-figure salary,
million-dollar home,
apartment in Paris
The boundaries of success are
often perceived as failures,
whether our own or those of our
environment.
bear
market
layoffs
failed CPA exam
starving artists80% of companies
fail during first year
market bubbles
flunked econ 101
glass ceiling
student loans
And there are fatal
mistakes we worry
about…
Ebola?
In Texas?
Given all this, most of
us stick to the tried and
true.
Big4,
one-bedroom condo,
vacation in Cancun,
upright piano rental
Oil & gas,
roommate,
weekends in
Galveston,
Young Professional
network
Part 2
outside the box
Entrepreneurship, innovation, growth and success require a healthy dose of failure.
The trick is to survive the process (no fatal mistake).
And what if we grew with each failure?
(We are used to learning from our mistakes).
Better, what if we ventured
further and welcomed our
failures?
Non-fatal failures are simplyinformation.
And what if we took the time to investigate each failure,
with detachment and curiosity?
Innovation rises from the unexpected.
(But we need to let ourselves imagine new outcomes.)
What would it take to leverage
failure to our advantage?
Determination, resilience,energy, method.
Part 3
methods
Failure as feedback
3,000 1,000 500
sale
s
Q1 Q2 Q3
What happened?
What information do we have?
Who is talking?
Failure as clarity
What works?
What doesn’t?
What works better?
Who owns the failure?
What’s our responsibility?
What to keep, what to toss?
Systemic or temporary?
Failure as timing
nownever
soon
Is our product ready? Are we ready? Are our clients ready? Is the environment ready?
Failure as clarity
What’s going on?
Better:
What are we unwilling to see?
Failure as opportunity
What remains?
Part 4
resilience
Non-fatal failures always leave residual assets.
equipment
raw materialrelationships
skills & knowledge
The big question is:
Do we have the vision and stamina needed to leverage our failures?
And if we did,
What would happen next?
Non-fatal failures are essential to
innovation, learning and continuous
improvement.
Build systems to extract information
from failures.
Practice leveraging setbacks into
new ventures.
Most importantly: have fun. It’s the skills you gain and the relationships you form that count most.
Weinstein Spira is a CPA and business advisory firm that
proactively assists businesses and individuals with
complex tax, audit, business management, wealth
transfer, estate tax and planning needs.
With more than 50 years of experience, we are actively
involved in the Houston community with a significant
network of relationships and resources to serve our
clients.
To learn more about services and career opportunities
visit our website at www.weinsteinspira.com
relationships count.
Written and illustrated by Marie-Pierre Stien, Director of Talent Acquisition.