EP69: Stop Failing Slowly: The Trouble With Waiting for the Right Moment

Are you stalling your progress waiting for the perfect moment? 

In this raw and real episode, I reflect on perspective-shifting conversations with badass women I would never have met had I continued waiting for the right moment.

As the end of the school year sneaks up on us and we ease into a more laid-back vibe, I detail my own journey of stepping out of my comfort zone to join new networking groups. These moves led to meaningful collaborations and incredible connections.

I detail the concept of "failing slowly" — the trap of waiting for the perfect moment and how it can cripple your true potential. I'll share a moment recently in Las Vegas when the realization of how I've failed slowly for so long hit me in the gut and had me completely breaking down in a room of 100+ women.

As we pause to reflect and recharge over the next few months, let's commit to embracing the opportunities ahead. And stay tuned for more powerful guest episodes where I'll bring you stories from the remarkable women leaders I've connected with along the way.

Chapters

• 0:03 Business Blasphemy Podcast and Upcoming Season
• 9:16 Embrace Taking Chances and Trusting Yourself

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello, blasphemers. It has been a minute since we've had a one-to-one chat, hasn't it? I've had so much fun the last few weeks connecting with amazing women in the space and they have graced me by coming on the podcast and sharing, you know, not only their zones of brilliance but their insights and their stories, and it's just been so much fun and I wanted to make sure that I was able to share that with you. And now, as we're kind of, you know, winding down, we're getting closer to the school year being over, which, you know, whether you have kids or not, signals the summertime start. Right, summer's coming. Things are going to start getting easier, slowing down, being a bit more laid back, and I figured the next couple of weeks, you know, we can just kind of talk about some really straightforward, simple things. We don't have to get all crazy, but I wanted to still make sure that I shared these incredible women with you before we took that break, because, you know what, I didn't want to sit on it. So hopefully you've enjoyed the episodes the last few weeks.

Speaker 1: 1:42

I'm going to be taking a little bit of a break over the summer. That does not mean that the podcast is not going to publish. I'm actually going to reshare some of my favorite episodes with you, some of the most popular episodes, which have actually been really surprising. My episode number two on six-figure pricing bullshit is actually the top episode of the entire series of episodes that I've put out so far. It's gotten hundreds of downloads and it's actually also probably one of my favorite because I just cut loose, right Like I let it all out. Another favorite episode of all of you was the one that I did with Shula. She's the entrepreneur's therapist. She talks about mental health with entrepreneurs and in entrepreneurship and how it really impacts running a business and living your life, and so you know, those are just a couple of the episodes that I'm going to reshare. I'm going to go through some more and share those as well, and you know that should tide us over for this summer. It doesn't mean, though, that I'm taking a complete break. I'm going to spend some time editing and also recording episodes with some really incredible women leaders, some really strong leaders in the space.

Speaker 1: 2:49

The last few months, I have been very intentional about the spaces that I've been hanging out in and the people I've been connecting with, and I've been connecting with the kind of women that I really, really have wanted to be in community with for a long time. I think a lot of the time. What happens is you end up in communities by default, right, unless you're really intentional about it, and late last year, I challenged myself to push myself out of my comfort zone and start engaging with and putting myself in spaces and communities where the vibe is a little bit different than I'm used to, but it's all people that I would love to hang out with. One thing that I think a lot of people don't know about me or don't realize about me, because I am so loud and I come across as very gregarious and I have a podcast and blah, blah, blah. People think I'm actually pretty extroverted and the truth is I'm actually painfully shy. Like I am very shy, I'm very much an introvert in the sense that, yes, I need a lot of time to recover after social engagements. I love spending time in quiet. I'm not naturally inclined to connecting with people, like, if you invite me to a party, I am going to be that one who sits in the corner with a bowl of chips and a drink and I'm just going to like, observe, right.

Speaker 1: 4:13

And so I started late last year, intentionally putting myself in situations that were a little bit uncomfortable, and I joined a group where it was a networking group, where you know, we meet regularly and then we get into breakout groups and we are forced to talk about who we are and to share about our businesses and we really have to put ourselves out there regularly, so practicing being visible, and I got to tell you for the first little while it was super uncomfortable, like super, super uncomfortable. I wanted to click the leave meeting button on Zoom every single time. But you know what, when you're forced to put yourself out there and talk to people and have intentional conversations, it can be scary, but honestly, it has resulted in some of the most incredible collaborations and it has resulted in some of the most incredible collaborations and it has resulted in some of the most incredible connections with just phenomenal human beings and opportunities that I never would have had had I not put myself out there. So, all of this to say, in August, probably around mid-August, we're going to start unofficially, season three and it's going to really focus on sharing the stories of some of those connections that I've made, because, man alive, the women that I have met, the stories that I have heard, the things that these women are doing out there in the business world and in the world in general are fucking incredible and I would be an asshole not to share that with you. So those are coming. I've already started recording and banking some of those episodes. They're great. They're honestly really really great. And on top of that, last week it is now the end of May Last week I went to Vegas and I spent some time in the company of women who I did not know.

Speaker 1: 6:02

There's a room of 100 women. It was hosted by Jennifer Kim and it was also one of those things that I just took a chance on. I didn't know her. She invited me to this event after somebody tagged me in a random post and it was just, you know, I was on this role of like putting myself out there and I thought this would be a great opportunity to practice it in an even bigger way. So I went to Vegas last week and I made some really fantastic connections and I put myself in a community now where I'm going to be regularly meeting with really, really high performing, ambitious women and just having had the opportunity to listen to some of their stories last week, when we kind of met after the main event, it really made me realize how many women's voices we just don't get the opportunity to hear. You know, we don't get the opportunity to hear the stories that make us feel seen and heard.

Speaker 1: 6:57

There was a situation that happened at this event and I'm sharing this with you because and I didn't expect it to happen we were listening to Jennifer Kim talking and sharing her vision and just sharing in general, and about halfway through the day she says okay, I would love for anyone who has a share or an aha, you know, to you know something that really kind of spoke to you for the first half of this event, stand up and share it, and I've done this before. Like when I'm in a group, I don't have a problem speaking in public. I do it for a living. It's not that hard right For me anyway. And so I put my hand up and the mic runner came over and they handed me the mic and I stood up all confident and all of a sudden, out of fucking nowhere, I couldn't breathe and tears just came streaming down my face and I was shocked because I, in that moment, first of all, I knew what I was going to say and I couldn't say it, and it was so crazy to me that I'm standing there completely losing control of my emotional well, my emotional control and the women in this room did something that I've never experienced. They were silent and they waited right. Nobody said oh, it's okay, you know, don't worry, get her a tissue, take a break, like nobody said that they let me have my moment and I cried and it took me a minute to kind of catch my breath and take, you know, breathe. And I remember holding the microphone and I was shaking. And this was such an unusual and new experience for me, because I talk all the time, I share vulnerable stories and truths. This is not something that was out of the ordinary for me, but the women waited and one woman at my table who I didn't know bless her. She grabbed my hand and she just held it. One woman at my table who I didn't know Bless her. She grabbed my hand and she just held it and I shared the moment that I wanted to share, the aha moment that I had, and if you're curious what it was.

Speaker 1: 9:16

So earlier in the day, jennifer said something that really stuck with me, obviously really stuck with me, and it was the idea of failing slowly. We sometimes wait so long before we do the thing that we truly want to do because we are waiting for the right time, we are waiting to feel ready, we are waiting for circumstances and the environment and just, we're waiting for all of these things to just line up correctly so that we can take this chance, we can take this next step. And she said you know, I see so many women failing slowly because they're doing that. And that struck such a chord with me because my whole life has been about waiting. My whole life has been wait until the right moment, wait until circumstances are exactly the way you need them to be, wait until you know you have control over the majority of variables, wait until someone gives you permission, wait until, wait, wait. And that has been the story of my life.

Speaker 1: 10:20

I am not risk averse. I'm risk aware, and part of that comes from a career where, as a project manager, impact and risk was a big part of what I did. Right, it was, for fuck's sake, it was part of my master's degree, right? Impacts and risks, understanding the risks of things, understanding the numerous outcomes of something that's something that I've innately always done. And also, I grew up in a culture, I grew up in an environment where safety was paramount and you didn't put yourself out there, you didn't say or do things that were not comfortable or expected, because comfort and safety were paramount. Right, we wanted to make sure that everything we did, we understood the ramifications of and I'm not sitting here and saying we just take chances willy-nilly and we throw caution to the wind, because that's stupid too.

Speaker 1: 11:20

But so many of us are just constantly waiting for the right moment, for the market to be better, for our audience to be bigger, for the offer to be perfect, for us to know all of the things we think we need to know in order to feel like the expert in a particular space or in a particular topic. And we wait, and we wait, and we consume more and we wait. And what do we do? We end up waiting so long opportunities pass us by. We end up waiting so long that the time is never right. In fact, the right time may have passed because we weren't looking for that particular space, we were just waiting for it to show itself to us. Right, there are so many reasons, but what ends up happening is we fail, and I don't use that word lightly, like I know the platitudes of you never really fail until you stop. And failure is not failure, it's redirection. There are a ton of platitudes reframing failure to make it more palatable.

Speaker 1: 12:26

And yet how many of us fail ourselves, fail our visions, fail our dreams, our truth, because we are waiting for something, some signal, some sign to tell us this is the right moment to do it. And yet, when you look back at your history, has there ever been a clear sign that now is the right time? Maybe for some of you there has been, but I'm pretty sure it's few and far between, and that just taking action has actually been the thing that creates the right time, the right environment, the right circumstances. And so I shared that. I shared the idea of how this little brown girl from a small mining town in northern Canada, whose house words were what will people say? She spent her whole life playing small, waiting for the right moment, waiting for things to be. You know all my ducks in a row before I took chances, how many things I've missed out on as a result of that. And I look back and it's not lost on me how incredibly blessed I have been in my life. But it's also not lost on me how many things could have been different had I just trusted myself and believed in myself enough to be able to navigate the uncertainty. We have such an obsession with avoiding uncertainty. And yet, when you really look at life, nothing is certain, nothing, there is absolutely nothing that is in your control.

Speaker 1: 14:12

And again, I'm not advocating throwing caution to the wind and just willy-nilly doing things. Planning thought does go into it, but there has to be a line where you say I've done all I reasonably can and now I just have to do the thing. And I'm going to trust myself enough to know that, no matter what happens, I'll manage it, I'll make it through, it'll be fine. I will make it work in whatever way that I can make it work. I will make it work in whatever way that I can make it work, and the one common denominator so far of all of the women that I've been so blessed to have had conversations with for the podcast is that they took a chance on themselves. Right, they bet on themselves, they took that chance and they turned it into something that they wanted, something that they loved it into something that they wanted, something that they loved, and nothing turned out the way they had planned or anticipated. But that doesn't mean it didn't turn out just fine, and in some cases, many cases, even better.

Speaker 1: 15:13

And so this is not the episode that I was thinking I was going to record today, but I think it's a good one to leave you with, because, as we go into summer, as the school year, the year right starts to wind down and we move into a time of reflection and rest and replenishment, which is what traditionally the summer months are for. I invite you to think about where you are waiting, where you are allowing yourself to fail slowly because you're waiting. And what truth, what thing, what ambition, what dream is on your heart that you've always wanted to do, but you've just been waiting. The experiences of the last few weeks have actually been hugely eye-opening for me too. For the last five or six years in my business, I have focused primarily on operations, on how to do business, on the strategy, and I'm not going to say I don't enjoy it. Of course I enjoy it. I'm really fucking good at it. I've been doing it for 20 plus years professionally, so I am really really good at it. I can do that shit in my sleep. But if I said that I loved it and that I was passionate about it, I'd be lying to you.

Speaker 1: 16:42

The thing that has always been on my heart, the thing that has always been of paramount importance to me, is empowerment, choice, advocating for women. I spent so much of my life being silent, conforming, because it was safer, because it was easier. I'm 48 years old, y'all. I am tired of playing it safe and the dream that is on my heart. I think it's time to make it happen, because I have been waiting. If I'm completely transparent, I've been waiting too. I've been waiting a very long time for the right words, for the right spaces, for the right insert whatever here and something Jennifer Kim said to me last week made me realize that I'm actually doing a disservice to all of the women that I could help and that I could inspire, because I'm waiting for the circumstances to be just right and so moving forward. Yes, I will still be working in the operation space and doing strategy, but it's not going to be the primary thing that I lead with anymore.

Speaker 1: 17:55

I think we need more leadership in the space, women's leadership, leaders who are women. I think more of us need to tap into our stories and share them. I think more of us need to feel comfortable taking the lead in spaces and in places, but not from a place of ego places, but not from a place of ego, but from a place of really understanding how much of a catalyst our stories can be, not only for ourselves but for other people, for change, for real impact in our communities, in our own lives, and so I'm really excited about what is to come. I have no idea how it's going to pan out, and for someone who is a control freak like me, that's actually really scary, but I put myself in spaces where I didn't know what to expect and the results have been beyond what I could have imagined. So I'm leaning back into trusting myself that, no matter what happens, I can manage it and I can manage it well. And if you are an entrepreneur, my friend, you've already taken a chance on yourself. You already know you can handle it. So, as we move into the summer months, I really do invite you to think about where you can lean further into what you really really want, and not what is safe, because it is time for us to take up more space and it is time for us to raise our voices, because what you have to say needs to be heard. That's my two cents Take what you will, leave what doesn't feel good.

Speaker 1: 19:35

This episode did not go how I had planned, but I'm loving the way it turned out. You can have success without the BS. You just got to trust yourself. I will talk to you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and, if you're feeling extra sassy, rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.