Learning From Mistakes

I failed 5 times before I figured it out. Here’s every business I tried (and what each taught me)  2015 - Charity Platform ✅ Why I thought it would work: Charities needed fresh ways to raise money. ❌ Why it failed: Big charities move way too slow, red tape killed momentum. 💡 Lesson learned: Work with smaller, agile clients who can act fast. 2016 - Affiliate Site for Dentists ✅ Why I thought it would work: Dentists pay big for leads = $$$ opportunity. ❌ Why it failed: Having a product isn’t enough, I had zero marketing skills. 💡 Lesson learned: Affiliate success = mastering marketing & performance media. 2017 - Talent Agency ✅ Why I thought it would work: I crushed it in influencer marketing—this felt like the next step. ❌ Why it failed: Managing ego-driven talent is a nightmare. 💡 Lesson learned: Winning in one space doesn’t mean you’ll win in the next. New market = new skillset. 2018 - Doodlar (Teespring Competitor) ✅ Why I thought it would work: Teespring made £50M—I wanted a piece of the pie. ❌ Why it failed: I went too broad instead of focusing on a niche. 💡 Lesson learned: Start with a laser focus (e.g., anime fans) before scaling up. 2019 - PetHeart ✅ Why I thought it would work: Pet owners are obsessed with their pets. ❌ Why it failed: I wasn’t a pet owner, I didn’t understand my customers. 💡 Lesson learned: Deep customer insight is non-negotiable for product success. What did I do differently? I embraced failure, learned from it, and applied those lessons to my next big idea. Your failures don’t define you how you learn from them does. So, if you’re struggling, don’t give up. The next big success might be just around the corner.

Leadership is not about control. Last week, I spoke with someone dreaming of building his own business. The person was anxious about leading a team, and said 'I guess everyone just solves things on their own.' That made me reflect on how often leaders expect their teams to operate in isolation. It made me share my own philosophy with him, which is: 'We will figure it out.' I believe that building trust with your team takes time. It's about making changes together. If you want your team to do their best, share the responsibility. Here's how: 1. Let your team lead: Take ownership, especially of setbacks. 2. Talk honestly: Be open, even when it's tough. 3. Encourage trying new things: Make it safe to take risks and learn from mistakes. Break down your leadership into simple actions. Here are 5 key changes to make: 1. We will figure it out: Don't just hand off problems. Work with your team to solve them. 2. Do difficult conversations actively: Staying silent creates confusion. Have those difficult talks; they help everyone grow. 3. What can we do differently?: Sticking to old ways stops progress. Challenge the usual; ask if it still works. 4. Failure is mine, success belongs to my teams: Leadership is about the team. Celebrate their wins and show appreciation. 5. Fail fast, learn fast, and move on... Mistakes are how we learn. Create a culture where it's okay to fail and improve. Your team's success starts with your mindset. Own their failures and give them credit for the wins. #Leadership #Teamwork #GrowthMindset #Collaboration

You can’t have a high-velocity, high-impact career without screwing up. I had multiple public screwups on my way to Amazon VP. The good news is that mistakes can help your career if you handle them right. Here is a formula: 1) Own it. 2) Fix it. 3) Communicate it. 4) Learn from it. 5) Move on. That really is it, but of course, each of those pieces has steps of its own. To own your mistake, you must be specific and direct. Tell your leadership what went wrong and why to the best of your knowledge. Tell them that it is on you to fix and how you will go about doing that. If you don’t know any of these details, tell them you don’t know and when they can expect an update. To fix the problem, consider what options you have based on new information. If time allows, pressure test these options by running them past one expert and one skeptic. Ask three questions: “What am I missing?” “What breaks first?” “What would have to be true for this to work?” Then, assign clear owners, clear expectations, and call in reinforcements. Get experts from other teams to help you—don’t be proud. Make small adjustments where possible, but don’t be afraid to roll it all back. Don’t be tied to old expectations or original ideas. Give your leadership and team a cadence for your updates, and stick to it. Frequent updates will help buy you time and win back trust piece by piece. When the crisis has been stopped and things have been fixed, reflect on what you have learned and share it. Then, move on. Dwelling on what you did wrong does not help your career, your mental health, or the business. Moving forward, setting new goals, and bouncing back helps all three. If you want a more in-depth lesson on how to mentally prepare to lead through crises, how to manage them, and how to recover, read this week’s newsletter: https://buff.ly/uZWsxLV Readers- what mistakes have you made that you were able to thrive through? How did you bounce back?

Mistakes don’t define you. How you respond to them does. Every mistake hides a lesson. This framework will help you uncover it. Whether you’re running a business, leading a team, or managing your own life, navigating challenges can feel like uncharted waters. Mistakes happen, but they’re where the magic of growth begins. Let me share a simple framework that changed the way I approach challenges. It's based off of the U.S. Army’s After Action Review method. This framework can help you take any 'failure' - in business, leadership, or life - and turn it into wisdom through 5 reflective questions: 1/ What was planned? ↳ Set clear business goals and success metrics. Example: "We planned to increase website traffic by 50% in Q1 through a targeted social media ad campaign, with a clear focus on driving sign-ups for our newsletter." 2/ What actually unfolded? ↳ Track your progress honestly. ↳ Note both wins and setbacks. Example: "The campaign doubled website traffic, but only 10% of visitors signed up for the newsletter. Additionally, most clicks came from an unexpected age group (18-24)." 3/ What did you learn? ↳ Identify gaps between expectations and reality. ↳ Uncover growth opportunities. Example: "We discovered that our messaging resonated with a younger demographic, which wasn’t our original target audience. The landing page design was also too cluttered, which likely discouraged sign-ups." 4/ What can you do differently next time? ↳ Use your insights to shape a clear strategy. ↳ Create concrete action steps. Example: "We’ll redesign the landing page with a clean, minimal layout and a clearer call-to-action. We’ll also create personalised ads to better target both our intended audience and the younger demographic who engaged." 5/ Where can we try these new ideas next time? ↳ Identify upcoming business decisions. ↳ Apply your insights immediately. Example: "We’ll apply these changes to our next product launch campaign. Specifically, we’ll use the improved landing page design and split-test targeted ads to ensure higher engagement and conversion." Here’s what I want you to remember: ↳ Every challenge you face is shaping you into a stronger, more resilient leader - whether in business, leadership, or life. ↳ You have the power to learn, grow, and improve every time. ⤵️ What’s the most important lesson a mistake has taught you? ♻️ Know someone navigating challenges? Share this post to help them turn mistakes into their next breakthrough. 🔔 Follow me, Jen Blandos, for more practical tips on business growth and leadership.

𝙄 𝙈𝙖𝙙𝙚 𝙈𝙮 𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝘽𝙞𝙜 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠 𝙈𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚. 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙉𝙤, 𝙄 𝘿𝙞𝙙𝙣’𝙩 𝙂𝙚𝙩 𝙁𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙙. 𝙄 𝙂𝙤𝙩 𝘽𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧. A few months into my first job, I messed up. Not a small typo or a forgotten email — a real, client-facing, how-did-you-miss-this kind of mistake. I was convinced that was it. Career over. Trust broken. Reputation ruined. But here’s what actually happened 👇 📍𝗜 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 — 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 No excuses. No deflection. Just: "Here’s what happened, here’s what I’ve already done to fix it, and here’s how I’ll prevent it going forward." That sentence changed the conversation. 📍 𝗠𝘆 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗺𝗲 — 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗲 Turns out, everyone in the room had made mistakes too. The difference? They’d just moved past them faster — by learning out loud. 📍𝗜 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 Because nothing signals accountability more than taking responsibility under pressure. That one moment of ownership led to more autonomy later — not less. 📍𝗜 𝗱𝗼𝗰𝘂𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 Not to relive it — but to build a personal playbook. What was the root cause? What signs did I miss? What process needs to change? 📌 What I learned: Mistakes don’t break trust. Hiding them does. And sometimes, the fastest way to grow in a role is to survive your first big error — and handle it with maturity. If you’re early in your career: Don’t aim to be flawless. Aim to be accountable, proactive, and honest when things go wrong. That’s what people remember. LinkedIn LinkedIn News India LinkedIn for Marketing #CareerGrowth #WorkMistakes #OwnershipAtWork #ProfessionalDevelopment #EarlyCareerLessons #RealTalk

Not all failures are equally intelligent. Blindly embracing failure without structured learning leads to wasted effort. The most innovative and inclusive teams don’t fail randomly—they: 🔹 Run experiments with clear hypotheses 🔹 Test assumptions rather than take blind risks 🔹 Extract insights from failures and iterate But here’s the catch—learning from failure requires psychological safety. Without an environment where people feel safe to share mistakes, challenge ideas, and admit uncertainty, failure becomes a silent roadblock instead of a stepping stone. 💡 Leaders set the tone. Here are 3 practical ways to foster intelligent failure: 1️⃣ Track “good failures” as a key metric Most teams track success metrics—but what if you also tracked learning-driven failures? Encourage teams to document failures that led to valuable insights, prevented bigger mistakes, or refined an approach. 2️⃣ Design “pre-mortem” sessions before major decisions Instead of only analyzing failures after they happen, conduct pre-mortems: 🔹 Ask, “If this project were to fail, what might have caused it?” 🔹 Gather diverse perspectives to uncover risks early 🔹 Strategize preventive actions to minimize blind spots This approach reduces costly mistakes while creating an inclusive space for open dialogue. 3️⃣ Assign a “Red Team” to challenge assumptions Cognitive biases and groupthink often lead to avoidable failures. Before implementing a major decision, assign a rotating "Red Team" to stress-test ideas by deliberately challenging assumptions, questioning the data, and proposing alternative perspectives. 💭 What’s one thing you do to turn failure into a learning opportunity in your team? Let’s share insights! 🔔 Follow me to learn more about building inclusive, high-performing teams. __________________________ 🌟 Hi there! I’m Susanna, an accredited Fearless Organization Scan Practitioner with 10+ years of experience in workplace inclusion. I help companies build inclusive cultures where diverse, high-performing teams thrive with psychological safety. Let’s unlock your team’s full potential together!

Regret your candour with the boss? Made a careless blunder that will cost the company a lot of money? Ignore a minor problem that now puts your credibility at risk? You’re not alone. Everyone I know makes mistakes. Many of them are also leaders, doers, trailblazers and have profit from making mistakes. James Joyce says mistakes are the portals of discovery and the management literature abounds with many articles advocating that mistakes can be a good thing. But there is a caveat - whilst making mistakes is part of working life, learning from them and managing their consequences requires integrity and skills. We all make mistakes and if managed poorly, mistakes will damage our reputation and career. This is especially true when we are at vulnerable points in our career like when we are just at the beginning of our career or starting a new role, or trying to win over a new manager. So how does one respond when one makes a significant mistake? Many wish the mistake would not be noticed, or are gripped by fear that prompts poor decisions. The key is to replace wishful thinking and fear with taking control of the situation. This can be achieved by a four-step approach. 1. Own up. But tread carefully especially if the company has a culture of blame-shifting - it's important to pick your moment and find allies. But whatever you do, own up before your hand is forced. And own up properly - admit the mistake and don't make excuses. 2. Improvement. Shift the focus from blaming people to improving processes by doing an objective assessment to identify root causes and process improvements so the same mistake will not happen again. Also articulate accurately the consequences of the mistake and recommend specific actions to mitigate its impact. 3. Permission. Share how you would implement the mitigation measures and improvements, and get approval to proceed. So from being the person who made the mistake, you become the person who eliminates mistakes. 4. Compassion. Have compassion for yourself. Recognise that A. mistakes likely happen when you strive for growth and push for performance, B. You can learn from this experience and reduce the chances of mistakes, Whilst we can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, we can learn, be better and never make the same mistake. Agree?

Early in my career, when I shared the story of a workshop that completely bombed (an email announcing layoffs arrived in everyone's inbox during day 1 lunch of a two-day program -- and I had no idea how to handle this), three women immediately reached out to share their own "disaster" stories. We realized we'd all been carrying shame about normal learning experiences while watching men turn similar setbacks into compelling leadership narratives about risk-taking and resilience. The conversation that we had was more valuable than any success story I could have shared. As women, we are stuck in a double-bind: we are less likely to share our successes AND we are less likely to share our failures. Today, I'm talking about the latter. Sharing failure stories normalizes setbacks as part of growth rather than evidence of inadequacy. When we women are vulnerable about their struggles and what they learned, it creates permission for others to reframe their own experiences. This collective storytelling helps distinguish between individual challenges and systemic issues that affect many women similarly. Men more readily share and learn from failures, often turning them into evidence of their willingness to take risks and push boundaries. Women, knowing our failures are judged more harshly, tend to hide them or frame them as personal shortcomings. This creates isolation around experiences that are actually quite common and entirely normal parts of professional development. Open discussion about setbacks establishes the expectation that failing is not only normal but necessary for success. It builds connection and community among women who might otherwise feel alone in their struggles. When we reframe failures as data and learning experiences rather than shameful secrets, we reduce their power to limit our future risk-taking and ambition. Here are a few tips for sharing and learning from failure stories: • Practice talking about setbacks as learning experiences rather than personal inadequacies • Share what you learned and how you've applied those lessons, not just what went wrong • Seek out other women's failure stories to normalize your own experiences • Look for patterns in women's challenges that suggest systemic rather than individual issues (and then stop seeing systemic challenges as personal failures!) • Create safe spaces for honest conversation about struggles and setbacks • Celebrate recovery and growth as much as initial success • Use failure stories to build connection and mentorship relationships with other women We are not the sum of our failures, but some of our failures make us more relatable, realistic, and ready for our successes. So let's not keep them to ourselves. #WomensERG #DEIB #failure

In school, we’re taught that failure is something to avoid at all costs. But failure is actually required to reach your long term goals. Here are 5 ways failure helped me reach mine: 1. Building A Music Blog In 2011, I started a music blog. It never got more than 200 total visits. I eventually shut it down. But it taught me how to set up my own website and the basics of internet marketing, which allowed me to start Cultivated Culture without any funding. 2. Building A Social App In 2014, I had an idea for an app. I spent dozens of hours mocking it up and $1,000+ on prototype. Two weeks later, two other companies launched identical apps with venture funding. But it taught me the basics of developing a piece of software, and allowed me to build our current suite of job search tools. 3. Freelancing I wanted to change industries, so I freelanced to gain experience. I didn’t get any clients from the first 1,000+ emails I sent. But it taught me that “sales” and outreach are volume games, as well as giving me data that I eventually used to optimize, get clients, and leverage in my networking efforts to land referrals. 4. LinkedIn (Take 1) I shared my first piece of LinkedIn content in 2016. I did it for about two weeks before feeling dejected that I wasn’t getting any reactions or views. That eventually led to the realization that, if I wanted to grow, I needed to focus on creating content instead of outcomes at the beginning. 5. LinkedIn (Take 2) About six months later, I starting sharing LinkedIn content again. This time, I kept it up for a month before running out of ideas. I had to stop again, but it eventually taught me that creating content is about building a repeatable system vs. just writing when inspiration strikes. 6. The Outcomes Of Failing Every one of these failures taught me lessons that I eventually leveraged successfully down the road. I was able to start my own business and bootstrap it without needing funding or paid ads because of everything I’d learned from past mistakes and failed ventures. Every one of those experiences is a lesson, if you’re open to seeing it.

Failing Is Good. Sharing Failure Is Great—Here’s Why (and the Difference) There’s a saying in leadership: “Fail fast, learn fast.” It’s useful, but here’s a more brutal truth I see every day as an executive coach—failing is good, but sharing your failure? That’s where greatness lives. Why? Because when you keep your setbacks to yourself, you learn and (hopefully) adapt. Good leaders do this all the time: they make mistakes, reflect quietly, and get a little bit better. But great leaders zoom out. They turn their tough moments—botched launches, missed deals, the uncomfortable conversations—into teachable stories for their teams. They debrief openly, admit what went sideways, and let others in on the real lessons. That’s not just transparency—it’s leadership with leverage. It shifts a culture from “hiding shortcomings” to “shared growth.” From my coaching chair, here’s what I see: → Teams led by “silent learners” improve slowly and in silos. → Teams led by “story-sharers” (even the humble, unpolished ones) build trust and adapt at light speed. My best work isn’t about helping leaders hide their failures. It’s helping them find language, timing, and confidence to share it: “Let’s dissect this together. Here’s what I missed, what I learned, and what I want us all to watch for next time.” The difference? Good leaders bounce back. Great leaders multiply learning. If you want to unlock not just your own growth but your entire team’s potential, start here: → Normalize quick, safe failure debriefs after every big project. → Model vulnerability. Admit you miss first. → Ask your people: “What would you do differently?”—and listen, really listen. → Set the expectation: we’re here to share learnings, not to get it perfect the first time. In leadership, it’s not how you fall that changes your culture; it's how you respond. It’s who learns—and how many—from how you get back up. Coaching can help; let's chat. Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Joshua Miller for more tips on coaching, leadership, career + mindset. #executivecoaching #leadership #professionaldevelopment #growthmindset #careeradvice #learning #success