“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.”
– Sven Goran Eriksson

How many times in your life have you avoided something because you were afraid that you would suck at it?

How many times have you not done something because you were afraid that you would not succeed?

How many times have you tried to do something and succeeded to your own surprise?

Which do you think is better: to try something and fail? Or to not try something and never know if you would succeed?

“I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.”
– Benjamin Franklin

The thing is when you do something and it doesn’t go the way you would have liked, it only becomes a failure if you don’t learn something from it. That’s one of the keys to success in business: take action, learn from your mistakes, and celebrate your successes.

When you cultivate a business mindset, you are cultivating a “fail forward” attitude. You are cultivating a desire to make lemonade when lemons land in your lap. You are cultivating a resilience that gets you through setbacks that unsuccessful people would let stop them in their tracks.

“There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions to them.”
– Tom Krause

You see, failure is in the eye of the beholder. One person’s crushing defeat is another person’s educational opportunity. A person with a business mindset will be a person who sees the cup half full when challenges come along. Rather than gnash their teeth and pull out their hair, they pause and figure out where the opportunity is hiding.

“My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents and I lay them both at his feet.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

So learn from your mistakes. Rejoice in your learning opportunities. And be grateful for all the ways the universe helps you grow and expand.