Do. Fail. Try Again. Succeed. Repeat.
“To become a winner, you need to be a good loser.”
JC Bisnar, CEO, Investagrams Inc.
This was a good and practical advice that I got from a friend and a life mentor.
I can still remember the day when I finally resigned from my corporate job as a Marketing Communications Supervisor in an insurance firm, to pursue my life-long dream as a creative entrepreneur. The feeling at that moment was priceless and liberating. It was the first time that I stood up for a decision I’ve made, that was grounded on my passion and my calling from God.
My colleagues saw me as “the brave one”, for leaving my stable and high-paying job for something that’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable. But deep down, I was partly confident, yet partly afraid of failing.
Let’s be honest, failing is one of the things we avoid in life. In the culture we grew in, from the educational system to our business success metrics, and even in our families, failure has always been synonymous to bad or something that is negative. If you do not succeed, it automatically means that you have already failed.
In February 2018, with a firm hold of God’s calling, faith and a little plan in my pocket, I jumped to create an unofficial multimedia start-up which I had initially called ignite ph…solely because my passion then was quite ignited, and boy, did it burned so bright. But sooner than I thought, that burning fire would only last for a glorious moment.
During the first quarter of 2018, my team and I have been working on a series of website projects from a big client. We had partnered with an IT firm and our contract should cover at least a year or until we’re done creating websites for all sub-companies of our client.
But……
- having a plan drawn only in my head,
- being undermanned and lacking proper delegation
….we started having late project deliveries and eventually neglected other projects at hand.
My “dream business” had soon become chaotic, and to make things worse, the partnership with the IT company and the year-long project had been terminated.
Things turned topsy-turvy in just six months. After that certain project failure, projects had also started to shy away from us and I had been very frustrated about it, I was repeatedly asking myself why failures had consecutively come. Coming from a family where great expectations were set upon me since my childhood, I had not taken these failures lightly.
It took me at least a month or two just basking in negativity, hopelessness and pity. Sometimes I wake up, thinking about my reason for existence. And in those dark moments, I continued to pray for patience, peace, leading and miracles…and I just worked harder any way.
As I was getting close to my birthday, I had one constant wish—PEACE OF MIND.
On August 12th, a day before my birthday, my life suddenly turned around. During the Sunday service in CCF, Pastor Peter Tan-Chi preached about one of our missions and reason for existence in this world—being the salt of the earth and the light of the world. (Matt 5:13-16).
From being stuck in a slump, I was instantly enlightened and spirited up. I had been reminded of my purpose and why I was doing what I doing.
I was created to do something valuable in this world, to create a positive impact in my community and to serve others.
I had become too focused with my ambition that I failed to see the real meaning of success. I was too proud of my past laurels that weren’t able sustain me for long, and I sought after profit, just to prove myself to other people.
I failed living the life God wants me to live. But being reminded of why He made me changed my perspective of the word success and it gave me hope to start over again.
Experiencing all these obstacles gave me a new notion about failure. And I even started to love it even though it still scares me sometimes.
Failure…
- is something that humbles us;
- failure teaches us lessons we’ll never learn from books or from any success guru;
- strengthens our character and tests our perseverance;
- will always be part of life and
- will always be a stepping stone to success.
Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Ma are some of my entrepreneurial inspirations. And one thing common to them aside from being hugely successful in their respective businesses, is experiencing FAILURES, TONS OF THEM. But they chose to fail forward, succeeded over their failures and became the best in their respective industries!
During the last quarter of 2018, I decided to devote my time to give my entrepreneurial dream another shot. But that time, I have learned from my mistakes and I know what and where to improve on. This year, I will be launching a creative-tech start up that doesn’t only provide excellent service but also set to impart something valuable to this world.
2018 has brought me some of the toughest failures I’ve ever experienced so far and by God’s grace, I am still standing, and thriving to progress every day in reaching my vision and serving my mission.
Maybe at this moment, you are still frustrated with your past failures or you are stuck in despair with your setbacks, but I want to tell you that WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES, WE FAIL AND THAT’S OKAY. The only thing that will make a difference is how we respond to failure—either we accept it and quit; or accept it, learn from it and take another shot.
Nicole Bundang is a Filipina UI and UX designer who founded kora.ph, a creative tech-start up that provides end to end multimedia and web solutions. She is a serial tipid-traveler, an adventurous foodie and a dog lover.
Nicole dreams of creating an impact in the creative community by educating women entrepreneurs on the proper use of creative tools to boost their business success.
