What successful women learned from their mistakes; Adapted from “Learn From these Mistakes From Successful Women in Business” by Fab Givovanetti

“You can’t think your way into becoming yourself” – Anne Lamott

Action is the driver of self-discovery. Mistakes are bound to happen along the way that shift perspective, change the goal, and magnify your understanding. We all make them it’s how and what we learn from them that sets individuals apart.

I believe that mistakes are our most valuable experiences.

We are to never forget them as they teach us to see our failures as practice, and regrets as burdens we need not carry. 

In the first volume to this series we’ll learn from

• Lora Bornestein, Founder of GROKKER
• Ella Wroath, Founder of Soul Circle Festival
• Briana Borten, the Founder of The Dragon tree

Lesson 1: You can’t please everyone

Time the one thing we all are reduced to, we may not know how much we have of it but we can’t bargain for more than our share. Time is the ultimate currency, it’s priceless, and impossible to retrieve once spent.

“As a working mother of three, I was constantly having to choose between work and my family. I felt like I had to sacrifice things in my personal life in order to succeed at work. I think that was often a false choice.

For 20 years, I woke up at 5:15 a.m. so I could get a workout in before waking up the children to give them breakfast and see them off to school — and still be at work by 7:30. The biggest lesson I learned was you can’t please everyone all the time by thinking that you can.” – Lorna Bornestein

You can’t be everything to everyone. You’ll burn yourself out, have no time, and miss things you value. Just because your calendar isn’t booked doesn’t mean you’re free. I used to feel bad when I didn’t want to return a call I knew was asking for an hour of time, but that’s just it, it was my time, the spaces left free in my calendar were for me. Learning when to lend it and when to use it for yourself battles the constant pressure to “be busy”. Busy doesn’t equate to being accomplished, needed, or successful. Busy equates to those who have little time something no one should strive for.

Lesson 2: Comparison is a trap 

We all doubt ourselves. When you look to people you admire… how confident, well-spoken, and “happy” they are you forget how you project yourself to the world through the same lens…with your best foot forward.

“I believed at the time that there was not enough to go around, people would steal my ideas and customers and all my hard work would be destroyed by someone bigger and better. I was very insecure in my own abilities and I thoroughly believed that I was not special, and I did not deserve the success I had achieved. It came from a long-term belief that I was flawed, not good enough in many ways and lacked the ability to be a success.

I worried I was not “authentic” enough as a yogi, that I would be found out and it made me extremely guarded and territorial around my businesses. I caused myself stress and tension that manifested in my body as injuries and I indeed became unable to do yoga and live my life to the full. Obsessing over the very thing I was so worried about attracted more and more of it to me.

I have worked a lot on this personal idea I had over the last few years. I now understand that we are all created with our own individual gifts and talents. (…)There is no lack in this world, only a perception that there is lack. We convince ourselves we are not good or talented enough, we do not earn enough money, or we will surely fail if we try and follow our dreams.” – Ella Wroath

In a battle of comparison you’ll never win; no one is like you and you are like no one. You are the only you, so be true.

Lesson 3: Trust is to be earned

Being trustworthy is a quality that is admired because not everyone is. Learning when to trust and when to keep your guard up is a lesson Briana Borten leaned the hard way in her business.

“I think one of the biggest (mistakes), which ended up being one of the greatest lessons for me, was opening the Dragontree with a business partner I didn’t know well enough and didn’t have great agreements in place with beforehand.

I knew the spa treatment side well, but didn’t have the money, and jumped at the chance to have a partner who could bring some cash to the table. But we weren’t a great match, and we didn’t go through the process of talking out what our partnership would look like, who would manage what aspects of the business, or even where we envisioned the business going. As a consequence, it didn’t work out very well, and I bought out her side of the business after a year.

We tend to go into business partnerships when we’re still in the honeymoon phase without a prenup, and a prenup is pretty important. I think it’s so vital to lay out really clearly what the business will look like; to talk about what will happen if we don’t always like each other. What if we don’t always agree? Lay all of that out in legal language so that there’s a predefined path when (not if) it doesn’t go smoothly.” –Briana Borten

Don’t get blinded by the positivity of the future. Plan for the future at its worst to protect yourself, your business, and your value.