We are approaching our 29th year in business. Wow! I’ve learned a lot during this time, and I am thankful for all the men and women who have invested in me through the years.

Recently, I attended an event where John Maxwell spoke. He shared a valuable perspective on how to have a return on our failures, and I wanted to pass the message on to my own audience who I know will value his insights.

Here are some of my takeaways:

  1. Most people separate success and failure. Mr. Maxwell said we should put failure and success together because, in the end, they go together. We can’t have lasting success in business or in life without some failures along the way.
  2. We should learn to understand the difference between good misses and bad misses. When we miss the mark, we should adjust and continue to head toward the success we are striving for.
  3. Embrace hard: everything worthwhile is uphill. To achieve success, we need to swim upstream. Achieving our goals and dreams will be hard, and it’s better to accept it and prepare ahead. No one has ever drifted to success.
  4. Anticipate failure. Mr. Maxwell also reminded us that failure is not just possible, it’s probable. When we know this, we can keep moving forward rather than letting the failure stop us. We can adjust accordingly and keep believing we will win.
  5. Develop a process and learn from the failure. Take the time to sit down, write things out and think through them. Plan forward and realize there is power in the process.
  6. Encourage others with our failures. Many people hide their failures because it’s difficult to talk about them or share them. But, sharing them openly encourages others and can help them realize that we all fail. There is hope for others in sharing our failures.
  7. Value the lessons that only failure can teach you. There are some things that we learn through failure that we would have never learned otherwise.

Getting a Return on Our Failures

Obviously, we strive to minimize mistakes when serving our customers and clients. But I am thankful that as a leader for my children, for my grandchildren and at Roofing & More, I know that mistakes will happen regardless of who we are, what we know or what we do. We will implement John Maxwell’s advice and get a hefty return on our failures. And we will continue to serve our customers and clients at a higher level because of what we learn from both our failures and our successes.