Entrepreneur Steph Korey often reflects on Thomas Edison’s prolific sentiment. The inventor once unabashedly proclaimed, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” He’s not alone. It is estimated that 80 percent of all businesses fail – on the bright side, though, this means that 20 percent succeed! What is it that separates those who succeed from those who don’t? According to Steph Korey, those who take the time and effort to learn from their failures and mistakes are ultimately the ones who find success in today’s competitive environment.
Steph Korey is the founder of a $1.4 billion travel-inspired company and an active investor who seeks to support companies founded by entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds. As an entrepreneur, she has faced numerous challenges, but by adopting a can-do attitude, she has overcome those obstacles and been named one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” in retail and Ecommerce (2016). She was also honored as one of Goldman Sachs’ “100 Builders and Innovators” in 2018 and 2019 and represented a business that was twice voted one of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company.
So, how do failures and mistakes lead to success? Here’s what Steph Korey has to share with up-and-coming entrepreneurs.
Without Failure, You Cannot Win
“If you’re never failing, you’re probably never really winning either,” Steph Korey says. She expands, “This might sound counterintuitive to some but, to me, it’s the most important [point] …. It should set the foundation for how you approach everything you do. Think about it: if everything you do is working, you probably aren’t taking enough risks, which means that even if you’re achieving small wins every day, you aren’t challenging yourself to achieve big wins that will set you apart in a meaningful way.”
While many Americans tend to view failure negatively, it is often a positive – and necessary – thing. Failure is part of life – it occurs naturally, and there is no way to stop it. However, failure in our lives can help us achieve success. Although failure doesn’t automatically lead to success, people who develop a positive relationship with failure, embrace its lessons, and see it as an opportunity to learn and grow are more likely to find success in the end.
Failure Is the Foundation for Learning
Like many researchers, Korey sees failure as the foundation for learning. However, learning from failure requires more than a promise to ourselves and a hope for the best. It requires the right culture and disposition as well as the appropriate tools and resources.
To ensure we learn from our failures, the first order of business is to promote a culture of trust, openness, and teamwork. This is something that only the leadership of an organization can do, as only the leaders can manifest and model a set of values to establish the proper tone and culture. To learn from failure, all must feel invited, welcomed, and safe in expressing their views of failure.
Steph Korey shares the following: “We know that we don’t know everything, and that’s why we’re always seeking out new perspectives that challenge our assumptions and using data to inform our gut feelings. We also know that we’ll make better decisions for the business when everyone is empowered to bring their unique perspective to the table, even (especially!) when that means people disagree.”
Disagreement is not failure. In fact, disagreement is an inevitable, normal, and healthy part of relating to other people. Humans have accumulated a vast store of collective knowledge, yet each of us alone knows surprisingly little and often less than we imagine. Open disagreement is one of the main ways we have of raiding other people’s expertise while donating our own to the common pool.
Steph Korey concurs: “Our rapid growth wouldn’t have been possible if we weren’t constantly learning by soliciting those insights, testing what we think might work, and then iterating based on what we discover.”
Steph Korey Believes Discussing Failure Builds Room for Improvement
Research shows that talking about failure makes for a happier, more productive workplace. While most people prefer to process failure internally for fear of appearing weak or unprofessional, taking the time to reflect on and communicate about unwanted outcomes can go a long way in creating a more friendly, trusting, and ultimately productive workplace.
According to angel investor Steph Korey, “It’s much easier to talk about failure in hypothetical terms than it is to actually embrace it, but highlighting these moments when they happen helps ensure this mindset becomes an active part of the culture you’re building … [In my experience] that means creating a space where it’s okay to publicly share what went wrong, and what the team can learn from that failure for next time.”
Research shows that talking about failure – both during the fact and afterward – can help to cultivate closer relationships with colleagues. Discussing failures can help to humanize the sharer by making them seem more approachable and relatable in the workplace.
In addition to helping an individual seem likable, talking about failure and encouraging colleagues to do the same can make workers more efficient. When an intelligent failure is buried or undiscussed, others risk repeating the same mistakes. The result? Increasingly inefficient organizations that replicate, instead of learning from, the same mistakes.
Ask Yourself: “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?”
It’s undeniable that most of us are afraid to fail. The fear of failure, sometimes referred to as atychiphobia, is an irrational and persistent fear of failing. Sometimes this fear emerges in response to a specific situation. In other cases, it might be related to another mental health condition such as anxiety or depression. The fear of failure may also be related to being a perfectionist. Because perfectionists have such high expectations for how things should turn out, they often experience a nagging fear that they won’t live up to those unrealistically high standards.
Appreciating the pressure of such expectations, Steph Korey often asks herself, “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?” Sadly, fear can stop us from achieving our goals and living our best lives. Not surprisingly, fear of failure manifests itself in various ways, making it difficult to detect. For example, some people believe they don’t have the skills or knowledge to achieve something. Others procrastinate to the point that it affects their performance or ability to finish tasks on time. Yet, others tell people that they will probably fail so they can maintain low expectations. In some cases, the fear of failure may even cause people to avoid trying altogether.
By asking ourselves, “what would I do if I weren’t afraid,” we learn how to understand and cope with our fears. We also learn how to use fear to our advantage. Successful entrepreneurs learn how to conquer fear to push through hesitations, create companies, develop innovative products, and disrupt industries.
To live a great life and succeed in business, people need to keep their fear in check. They need to forget non-physical fears, those that don’t ensure their physical well-being. These are anxiety-driven fears tied to emotional baggage, self-doubt, and limiting beliefs. For people to reach their true potential, they must reduce unnecessary, emotionally-based fears. Likewise, they must realize that the longer an irrational fear remains, the more concrete it becomes in their psyche. Staying fearful reduces an individual’s ability to make optimal choices. To think big and create value in the world of business, people need all the optimism they can get. Finally, it’s important to remember that people can overcome most problems if they genuinely want to find solutions.
Fear is a very real part of life. But those who learn to push past fear always accomplish more than those who succumb to it. As American industrialist and business magnate Henry Ford said, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.
