Uncommon Freedom
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Uncommon Freedom
Learning from Failure: Resilience in Business and Marriage
Failure is an inevitable part of any entrepreneurial journey, but it can be particularly challenging when you're building a business with your spouse. How do you navigate setbacks together without letting them damage your relationship or derail your dreams?
In this episode, we dive deep into the art of turning failures into fuel for growth. Drawing from our extensive experience as couplepreneurs, we share practical strategies for conducting failure post-mortems, building resilience, and maintaining a strong partnership in the face of adversity.
We also discuss the importance of celebrating small wins, practicing vulnerability, and surrounding yourself with supportive mentors and community. We offer insights on how to approach failure with curiosity rather than blame, and how to use setbacks as opportunities to grow closer as a couple.
Whether you're just starting out in business with your spouse or looking to navigate current challenges, this episode provides valuable tools for transforming failure into a stepping stone for success. Join us to learn how to build a business and a marriage that can not only withstand failure but thrive because of it!
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Hey there, Freedom Fighters. Ever feel like you're constantly hitting roadblocks and setbacks, both in your business or your marriage?
Speaker 2:Or and your marriage.
Speaker 1:And your marriage yeah.
Speaker 2:Trust us. We have been there. But here's the secret those failures can actually be your greatest teachers and catalysts for growth if you approach them with the right mindset, right Kev.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Okay, so failure is an inevitable part of the entrepreneurial journey, that's for sure, and it's really having that mindset to embrace it as an opportunity to learn and grow. But facing failure together can be particularly straining on a marriage right.
Speaker 2:It can be, yes, I think sometimes we get into blame and shame with certain things if we feel like we weren't in total agreement about different decisions we made. So here's how we combat processing failure together, to come out of it stronger, because we've mastered this right. Yes, we never feel like we've nailed it On top of each other.
Speaker 1:We've had so much practice with failure.
Speaker 2:Practice failing. That's our recommendation.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yes, we actually have a couple suggestions, though All right Number one Conduct a failure post-mortem after each setback to identify lessons learned.
Speaker 2:Who wants to do a failure post-mortem? That sounds terribly romantic. Yeah, it's a, but it's actually really important.
Speaker 1:It's very important, In fact. We do these frequently in parenting.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, yes, right yeah.
Speaker 1:Definitely very important to do in parenting, but also Sometimes in marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, we talked about different expectations with events or something like that.
Speaker 1:Yep Holidays, things like that, absolutely yeah. So an action step is to schedule a monthly failure review with your spouse to discuss recent challenges and takeaways. Now, if you can get away with doing just a monthly review for your failures. Way to go. You're actually way better than us. Keep a list, keep a note section on your phone. Write down your failures, maybe next to your prayer requests.
Speaker 2:Don't have your spouse write down your failures.
Speaker 1:That list could be very long, exactly, but do this monthly if you can get away with it. We actually need to debrief more frequently than monthly, just being honest about it. Yeah, but it's important to, because what we've learned is that failures are learning opportunities right, and if you maximize them and if you can also never make the same mistake again, that's the key, right. Smart people learn from their mistakes. Really smart people, or whatever the saying is smart people learn from their mistakes. Really smart people learn from other people's mistakes. It's something like that. But the bottom line is, at some point you're going to be learning from your mistakes. So the key is to not ever make the same exact mistake twice. Sometimes you make a little tweak modification and it might not work out the way you want, but the key is to never do the same exact mistake twice.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so we would say in business and entrepreneurship it's really to test and iterate. That's a lot of how these growth curves happen and how we make improvements. Some people they're afraid of failure, so they actually don't do anything and they're a little bit frozen. Some some people, they're afraid of failure, so they actually don't do anything and they're a little bit frozen. Some people maybe fail frequently, but they don't necessarily make a pivot or take a look at it in a way that allows them to move forward in a productive manner. So they may take longer to get to a productive point in their business because they don't take assessments of it and do the post-mortem. So I think, um, what our saying is you, you know, fire musket balls, not cannonballs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Jim Collins is the one. Well, not our saying yes, Jim Collins.
Speaker 2:Our good friend Jim Collins. Yeah, and why do we do something like that?
Speaker 1:Well, the concept behind firing musket balls versus cannonballs is musket balls are a lot cheaper and when they don't hit the target, or if they hit the wrong target, the impact is not nearly as significant as a cannonball.
Speaker 1:Or if they hit the wrong target, the impact is not nearly as significant as a cannonball. And so the idea here is you want to test things, small, small iterations like instead of rolling out on a program to entire your business, maybe you roll it out if you have a sales company, instead of having your entire sales force, try it, try it with one or two or maybe one division, and if it works, then you roll it out to everybody, versus saying all right, I just heard about this new thing, we're going to implement it widespread and it might have some unintended consequences, because that's something else we've learned is, a lot of times, things that appear to have a good short-term benefit can have a long-term negative consequence, and so you want to be careful. We think there's a lot of wisdom in being a late adopter when it comes to implementing change in a business.
Speaker 2:Now you can change too slowly and then it's too late to make the pivot. I think John has a recent book about leadership that talks about that Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You have to be able to pivot more quickly in the current environment that we all live and work in. But there's also wisdom in again learning from what someone else might be doing, or if it's a hot new idea that you just came across watching and getting some metrics on ROI from someone else, before you maybe put it all out there to your entire organization or you implement it across all parts of your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so resilience is like a muscle the more you face adversity together, the stronger and more adaptable you become, and resilience is so important. We've talked about many times the S word, which is security. It's the ball and chain that keeps so many people tethered to a job or a career that they hate. It doesn't give them freedom, doesn't meet their needs financially or maybe it does, but they're miserable in every other area of their life. And what I find is that many times the reason people don't switch is because they're afraid to failure. They lack that resilience.
Speaker 1:This is something that we try to drive into our kids. Thinking back to even just the one experience we had with one of our children going to his first middle school basketball tryout, having it was his first experience having a very intense coach, you know, in his shoes it felt like it was a mean coach, but it was just a good coach and it was. You know, after the first practice, nearly in tears, picked him up. It's like that's it. I don't want to do it. It was like, no, you're going to finish the commitment and you don't have. You don't have to stay on the. No, you're going to finish the commitment and you don't have to stay on the team, but you're going to finish out the week-long commitment and he ended up actually making the team as an underage kid and it was a great experience for him that we would have cheated him out had we not forced him to develop that resilience.
Speaker 2:Yep, absolutely so. This is really we're talking about business, but this is something that should apply to marriage, parenting, everyday life, workouts, health, resilience and grit are such important pieces of our journey, and so often people are choosing to be less resilient, I think, in our current culture, and we need to make that change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and something important like in every business, you're going to be asking people for things, or you're going to be asking them if they're interested in learning more. You're going to be offering services or products to people, and that is probably, if you were to survey people in sales, people that own businesses their least favorite thing it's all that type of stuff. The ones that are successful are resilient. They realize that some will, some won't, so what? They don't take it personal when someone says no, and what we found is that the vast majority of times, when people say no, it's not in a rude way, it's not personal, I would say no, it's not personal, it's just like okay.
Speaker 1:The reality is, for most people, when they say no, it's actually a not now, and it's important to keep that in mind. But when someone is rude about it, then it's honestly. It's helpful because you realize you don't want to do business with those types of people anyway. So, keep going, be resilient, get back up, and you're right, I get knocked down, but I get up again. There you go, there we go, it's a song from I don't know, definitely not my favorite musical decade, but anyways it had a principle.
Speaker 2:Before we move on, though.
Speaker 2:The other thing that falls into this category that came to mind is when I think about failure in regards to boundaries for leaders, by Henry Cloud.
Speaker 2:You know he talks about there's three Ps, and this really stood out to me in this book that when it comes to failure, you can look at it as it's personal, you can look at it as permanent and pervasive, and that's how we often get to the point where we don't get back up again is we say, okay, I have failed. This one time it's because it's about me and we do need to look inside ourselves, but many times it's not personal. Then we also say, okay, well, I failed in this one area, I'm feeling in every area of life and it's pervasive. And then the other thing is, because I failed in this, right now I'm going to continue failing in it, and we've made it permanent. And so if you can separate yourself out as part of your mindset boundaries, of not going into those spaces of those three Ps, then it helps you, when you're reviewing your failure, to get up and out of it much faster. I think Good stuff, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right. Celebrate small wins and milestones along the way to maintain momentum, man. Celebrating those small wins is so important in business, in parenting, in marriage, absolutely Exactly. So start a weekly tradition of sharing resilience victories with each other. Man. This is such a good idea to implement. If you have a team, a sales team or anything like that, talk about hey, you know, share an experience where you got turned down and then you kept making the call and then you had a victory. What we've learned is you know every no is one no closer to the next? Yes, that's right. And you know same thing with our kids. I mean, we've got teens that have been looking for jobs and they've received a lot of no's. But, once again, every no is one no closer to their next? Yes, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I think what we've learned too is sometimes when things look too easy, then people get disheartened to face adversity, but the truth is most of the time there's adversity in business and in life. Yeah, and it's good to share the messy middle. And so, even though I'm excited when someone has a quick and easy win, the truth is I'm actually really excited when someone shares something where, like, hey, I hit a wall or I had a really personal challenge in my life, but this is how I handled it, this is how I moved on. People are much more inspired by those kinds of stories Relatable, and it's the more common story, to be honest, in most businesses.
Speaker 2:So, where you are, just recognize that for every failure you have, actually, as leaders, what's important is that we share our failures, and I think that's an area because for me personally, maybe it's just being someone who values achievement, performance, how I look, it's harder for me to go back in time and remember some of my struggles, but I actually think that is what makes us more relatable and helps us to train the ones that are still in the trenches, maybe doing the things that we've accomplished a long time ago. So it makes you more relatable as a leader, with obviously using discernment, because what you don't want to do is overshare with people in your organization what might not be appropriate, but definitely sharing the struggles that you've had and mostly the struggles and how you've overcome them. So there's a way out.
Speaker 1:So a strong foundation of trust and open communication helps you weather the storms as a couple.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:All right. Number three is to practice vulnerability by sharing your fears, your doubts and struggles with each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, how often do you think for people that work together or are in parallel home businesses maybe working in the same household doing two different things how often do you think they're having these thoughts and not sharing them with each other? I?
Speaker 1:would say more often than not.
Speaker 2:Right and imagine how that affects again your married life, your family life and just the dynamics in your relationship when one of you is carrying around some of those things, or maybe both of you are carrying them around, but you're actually not having honest conversation about it and oftentimes we make assumptions about people. So, you know, I actually had to apologize for just how I was acting yesterday and it was actually for a number of reasons that were unrelated to you, but I took it out on you because I was frustrated in a couple different situations that were all coming together at the same time and I was just in one of those moods and, uh, you know, I was taking it out on you again because I wasn't necessarily being open and honest about what was going on and I was also blaming the wrong person and not taking personal responsibility for it.
Speaker 1:So um, I chose not to beat you for it.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you for doing that. We're not doing that Exactly, just kidding people. Okay, so your action step is to set aside 15 minutes each day for a heart-to-heart check-in. Now, we've talked about this in other aspects of life and business, so if you are already at a high place of trust, then you might talk about it in the moment. You might not have to set an appointment For us. We have a high sense of trust, I think so. We tend to process things as quickly as needed and we don't leave a lot of unfinished business, so to speak, for very long periods of time. But if you are struggling with this and you feel this resentment or this tension in your relationship, then it's time to make a calendar appointment and commit to each other that you're going to follow up.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So surround yourselves with mentors and a community who can offer perspective and support. So this ties in very closely to two parts of my book Upgrade your Circle and Run with Lions. And as I have more and more conversations with high performers, people who have struggled even our kids some of their recent realizations on just the power of influences. It is so important, and so we really want to encourage you surround yourself with people that are on a similar mission, that have similar values, that are abundant minded, that are rowing upstream, as we say, and make sure that you have that community. It is so, so important. Isolation is absolutely a killer.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Number four is to join a mastermind group or find a couple who can mentor you.
Speaker 1:You can talk about this, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Part of the reason that I'm in the mastermind I'm in now is because I wanted to be able to run with lionesses. I really wanted to have a group of people who understood somewhat of where we're at in business net worth, but also valued faith, valued family, so the things that were important to me and I wanted to be able to have some of these high level conversations with a high trust environment outside of our business mentorship, outside of you sometimes, and be able to come back with fresh ideas and fresh perspectives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the important thing to realize is that sometimes you're going to have to pay to get in that bigger room. We did it, I don't know, 12 years ago, when Dave Ramsey's Entree Leadership brand hosted their first Entree Leadership Summit. We heard about it and we're like we had never we'd done things specifically related to our business but had never. And we'd read lots of books, listened to lots of podcasts, but had never gone to a personal development seminar like that, where we made a several thousand dollar investment, flew, child care, that whole deal. But we went and it was phenomenal. We learned so much and just being in the presence of the speakers personally and as well as other people who are like-minded, it's so important and we did that twice.
Speaker 1:We've done many other different types of things since then and you know I've learned that, as we have opportunities even at that kind of some of the inner circles of some of the ministries that we support, typically the people that are supporting at a high level that are in those inner circles, they're like they're billionaires, um, and you know they make us look like, uh, paupers. And anytime I have an opportunity to spend time with those people, I I, if I can. I will take advantage of it because they're they're so much wiser, they have so much more experience. Uh, you know they're. They have access to people, you know.
Speaker 1:You know, like john Maxwell has talked about, one of the questions he always asks people is who do you know? That I should know, and it's a powerful question. It's how he's made some of the most important connections in his life. And when we look at our lives, so much of the success that we've experienced is because of the people that we know, the relationships we had, people that we've met that have connected us to other people who connect us to other people. So we really want to encourage you that. You know, start at whatever your budget can afford, but if you're not budgeting for personal development, for some type of mastermind or create it, you know I was.
Speaker 1:I was actually yeah it's my Eagles group and I was. I got the idea from Dave Ramsey and he actually answered this question this week on his Entree Leadership Podcast. Someone called and said how did you start it? He's like I just reached out to some people that, honestly, I had no business. They were above me. I didn't even have a relationship with them. I expected most of them to say no and what he actually found was that they all said yes, because when you're talking about the top 1% or 2%, like there's not, it's a smaller circle.
Speaker 1:It's only one or 2%, and so those people. It is a little bit lonely if you're not intentional to create that community of people that are abundant minded and very intentional about growth.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Okay. So building a business and a marriage that can withstand failure requires resilience, togetherness and a willingness to learn. It's not about avoiding setbacks altogether, but about facing them as a united front.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the next time you encounter a failure or a roadblock, resist the urge to get discouraged or point fingers. Instead, get curious. I love this. One of our favorite things is what happened? What's missing? What's next? Instead of trying to blame, get curious. Ask yourselves what can we learn from this? How can this make us stronger?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and remember that every failure is an opportunity to either grow closer together or drift further apart. So choose growth, choose resilience. Listen, guys. Choose each other every single time.
Speaker 1:As always, we believe in you and the uncommon freedom you're fighting for. Keep learning, keep loving and keep moving forward, friends.
Speaker 2:See you next time, freedom fighters.