Here I am about to go on my first sales call in my new role at American Express many moons ago! A colleague had taken this photo and immediately offered some encouragement in the form of “You’ve got this!”
Boy, was she ever wrong.
For starters, I left my portfolio in the office, which had my notepad, product brochures, and pricing sheets. I took the wrong subway line from NYC to the company location and was lost in the train system for a good 30 minutes. Of course, there were no cell phones to alert people that I was running behind schedule.I arrived to the sales call 40 minutes late. It was an inauspicious start to my new sales journey.
And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, here is the clincher…the person I was meeting with was nodding off in the middle of the sales pitch. I noticed it a few times, and when his eyes were closed for a good 10 seconds, I proceeded to cough loudly and pound my fist on the desk to keep him awake! It was a total failure from start to finish. Needless to say, I did not get the business.
That first experience of failure in a new job is very important for us. It teaches us a lot of things. Failures can, at times, be unprecedented. As painful as they can be, failures should be accepted and dealt with positively.
Failures make you a stronger person but do not define you as a person. Success gets valued more because of failure.
Keep in mind—your failures don’t represent the end--it is just the beginning.
The taste of success is always sweeter after a failure!!
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