Growing up in Western NY, I became and still am a huge fan of the Buffalo Bills.  There was nothing like picking up the morning paper to read about my favorite team.  I remember racing my brother to the end of the driveway to be the first one to grab the sports section, sometimes I cheated and hid his sneakers or pushed him out of the way, leaving him with the boring front page!  I could review the box score for more stats and read about what the coach and players said after a game.  Sports writers would always put their spin on what did or should have happened, the usual Monday morning quarterbacking.  I faithfully read all I could about my team.  Mostly in those years it was about another loss, but as a true fan I stuck through the good and bad times, always having hope.

Hope arrived one year with a new coach; Marv Levy.  Marv was a Harvard guy with success at the college, NFL and CFL level, not world championship level, but success, nonetheless.  One of his strongly held views was  “What you do should speak so loudly that no one will hear what you say.”  In other words show people what you can do, don’t tell them about it, anyone can talk…

Many people remember my team as a 4-time Super Bowl losing team.  But there is so much more to this story, it is about overcoming heartbreaking losses, being proud, being resilient and using FAILURE as a driver for future success.  Think about that, the whole football world saw them lose 4 straight Super Bowls; the biggest championship game that there is.  Talk about heartbreak in front of millions of viewers that could have easily led them to never having gone back; but Marv Levy as a leader/motivator said “A failure becomes just one time at bat if you refuse to let it defeat you.”  Just one time at bat… He was able to help his team get up off the floor 3 times to make it back to the Super Bowl. 

All of us have failed at something and will fail multiple times in our lifetime.  Your story is not that you failed, its what you did next, how you reacted.  I’ve failed at things in my personal and business life, sure I took too long dwelling on the fail, but I looked for the lesson(s) to be learned and how could I do better.  My biggest loss was this past year; for the first time in my career I was without a job.  The loss of a job was hard and painful, but I learned more about myself than any success I’ve ever had.  I am way more resilient and driven than I ever imagined.  I hit the ground hard networking, reaching out to former managers, experts in my field, writing posts, articles and commenting on LinkedIn.  I found my voice and with that a new team found me.  Losing a job is nothing to be ashamed of or is failing at something important nor something you love to do; it’s how you respond that will define your true character.  Never let a failure define you, I did not, and you shouldn’t either.  A failure is temporary, and its aftereffects do not have to be long lasting, it’s all up to you. 

There are 5 things that come to mind that I’d like to share on overcoming a fail. 

1.)   Failure is not the Kiss of Death- Michael Jordan was cut from his High School Basketball team, Dr Seuss was rejected by more than 20 publishers before his first book and Michelle Obama failed her first attempt at the Illinois bar exam.

2.)   Cool down before reacting- Take the time to be mad, angry, grieve, sad, etc.…, before you make your next move.  Anytime you react without taking some time to cool off and shake it off, you tend to make the situation worse. 

3.)   Support- Ask it from those that personally know you.  Getting honest feedback can be very insightful on your development areas (a.k.a weaknesses) and strengths, opening your eyes to why you may not have been successful.  Don’t be afraid, knowledge is power.

4.)   Contemplate- What happened, how it happened, what processes were missed, what you will change and how you will approach your next steps.  Seek alternate viewpoints on why you failed too.

5.)   Re-energize- Get excited about what lies ahead, its up to you make that fail be a lesson NOT a definition.

Authored By: Mitch Douglass, Managing Director