Project: Failing Forward

Whenever we interview one of the Risk-Takers on The Green Couch and their story unfolds, their definition of success slowly comes to the surface. Many of which have boldly stated, there is no such thing as an overnight success.

If anyone would tell you otherwise, they either have not found success or they have encountered one long, treacherous night. A night more extensive than the average 8 hours; perhaps one of 8 years?

From the concept to the creation, to the failed experiments and finally the product or service, more than a blink of an eye has passed. Moreover, while some of your experimental components may have fallen into place unintentionally to your benefit, none of your hard work was an accident.

The further you pursue your vision, the further chances you have of meeting it face-to-face.

But what happens when those failed experiments turn your trajectory off course? How can we keep the momentum going, so even though we won’t achieve overnight success we can fail forward?

It won’t be easy, but ask any of our Risk-Takers, and they’ll tell you the ongoing rewards are worth the ongoing time they “serve.”

• Find a mentor: It doesn’t have to be someone in your industry; just someone wiser, someone more experienced who is willing to sit down with you over lunch every few weeks to talk shop and life.

• Ease up on yourself: Remember, it’s okay to be wrong. If you’re always right, you’re not doing the right thing in life. Never settle for something that doesn’t challenge you.

• Set up a schedule: Whether it’s every day or every week, set an alert/alarm/reminder for you, dedicated to specific projects that need your time that are lacking and need more focus.

• Embrace change: In the absence of change is the absence of innovation. Use every roadblock, technical upgrade or trend as an opportunity to stretch your imagination. 

• Get street smart: If you can’t afford to travel or time away, invest in a good book to broaden your mind and refresh your senses. A new perspective from an unknown source always helps see life from outside the city limits. 

• Understand what failure is: Failure isn’t the absence of success. It isn’t meeting your expectations, deadlines or the status quo. Failure is not trying.

• Understand what failing forward is: Failing forward is using every “No” as, No way am I going to let this stop me from succeeding and reaching my goal. This failure showed me how not to do it – not that I shouldn’t do it.”

Fail forward, fail onward!

The Green Couch

Project: Be Unpredictable

Sometimes you have to use multiple platforms and methods. Sometimes you have to hire to fill every C-Level position. Sometimes you have to be mainstream. Sometimes you end up losing a bit of spark from your original plan.

Worse case scenario, there are moments when people know what you are going to do before you do. That’s because sometimes being an entrepreneur turns into being cost effective. It turns more profitable than you could have imagined. 

But as risk-takers there comes a time you have to be unpredictable. You have to take several steps back to the drawing board rather than turn to the Board.

Yeah, you’re thinking, everybody has already done it before; you just have to figure out a way to do it differently, even if that differently means to speak it in your voice.

No one thinks the way you do; use it to your advantage.

So how can you be unpredictable? (Isn’t reading about that and planning for that predictable?)

Be Open to Timeframes – A company that is set in stone and has a rigid five-year plan will miss too many opportunities. Time, technology and we as humans are changing so rapidly we can’t plan too far in advance. Leave room for adaptability and you’ll leave room for unpredictability.

Be Open to Advice – Whether it’s good, bad, left field, right field, from the old or really young, it doesn’t mean you have to take it, but any advice will help guide you to who you really are and who you want to be. And once you intake advice you act – unpredictably – on which you feel is wisest.

Be Open to Failure – Although it looks right in your mind and on the drawing board, success doesn’t always transfer to real life or happen overnight. Out of failure comes resilience, the need to be innovative and the room to be unpredictable.

-The Green Couch

Project: Aha! Moment

The end of the year is here and like those that have put holiday shopping off are freaking out, those that have put off their dreams are freaking out as well. Just two weeks until the new year, a few short days, and so many people are saying they haven’t achieved anything. It’s the final countdown and:

They’ve not lost any weight.
They’ve not yet graduated.
They’ve not scored the pot of gold.
They’ve not landed the perfect relationship.
They’ve not made partner.
They’ve surely not acquired the diamond.
They’ve not __________.

What have you not? I’m sure you can fill in the blank above with your own not.

But the aha! moment has no time restrictions. It has no respect for locations.

It comes when and where it pleases. In the middle of your dreams, during the shower. It hits you subtly; it hits you like a grand piano from the skyscraper above in a Looney tunes cartoon. Your feet affixed to the ground, your eyes transfixed to the behemoth coming closer and closer until suddenly what was just a thought, something you were flirting with in the back of your mind becomes a very real decision.

We’ve all failed this year. We all have had an idea. We’ve all had an idea we wanted to pursue, but other problems arose, and we’ve persuaded ourselves these were more prevalent.

Sometimes that decision is taken away from you. Because now you are stuck under a grand piano, under your grand idea.

Maybe 2014 has been a series of delays but writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry reminds us A GOAL WITHOUT A PLAN IS JUST A WISH. Without his plans, his success would not have been discovered.

Our Decembers are not our last chance to fulfill the end of quarter potential. They should, like every other day, be viewed as a first chance. Every day we can reevaluate our goal and put into effect a plan. So no matter what didn’t happen the three-hundred some days behind us, we have still have December 16th, and we still have an Ah ha! moment that needs to be implemented.

This December 16th reinvent the definition of your 2014. Forget about all the “Nots” that took place and start planning for a “Nothing Held Back Attitude.”

Give it all you got. Because you’ve got a lot to gain.

Project: The Green Couch Initiative

We tweet, post messages on Facebook, encounter people in impromptu meetings and set up sessions on The Couch. All with one intentional goal: To inspire people to speak, follow and fulfill their dreams.

We’ve formed an ever-expanding community of entrepreneurs that spill their risk-taking gutsy. Some whom are new to the game, others who are just beginning to pursue their dreams. Some getting their first taste of success, some their first taste of failure.

And so continues our purpose, to create a safe virtual and physical environment in which people - in which you- can,

1.)  Speak [your dream] Sometimes it’s literal – we need to voice it, we need to shout it. It’s like we say around here, “If it’s not a Hell Yeah! it’s a No!” Put some oomph behind your declaration. It may be to yourself, to your family or in your business proposal, but it’s time to speak it.

2.)  Follow [your dream] Follow up and follow through. Now that you’ve spoken up, it’s real. And there are people watching you follow your dream and who might want to follow along. Part of that business proposal can include an addendum that includes, “The Hell Yeah Guide to Making it Happen!”

3.)  Fulfill [your dream] Setting a deadline, meeting it and moving on to the next milestone? That’s called success. But there’s a reason they say reach for the stars. 1. Because they are so high, you’ll always push yourself to work upwards and 2.) Because there are so many you always have another star to reach.

 And when that happens, when you find another star, you have an opportunity to Speak [your dream]…

-The Green Couch