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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I love black licorice and licorice flavored jelly beans, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I’ll tell you the value of failing.
Friday Forum
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What I Learned Yesterday:
Did you know that Jerry Seinfeld was booed off stage the first time he did stand up? Did you know that Stephen King’s bestseller “Carrie” was rejected by publishers 30 times? Or how about this one? Thomas Edison failed at making the light bulb over 1000 times! The Beatles were rejected by a music label and told they have “no future in show business.” Walt Disney was fired and told that he lacked imagination and had no original ideas.
There are many, many other stories of how now-famous people once failed miserably. Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Abraham Lincoln, and Steve Jobs are just a few. The stories of their failures have been widely circulated around the internet and often used to inspire others. Sometimes it’s hard for me to look at those people and think that they have anything to do with ME. I’m not a millionaire. I’m not a famous author or inventor. I’ve never won any awards, well, unless you count that podcasting award!
The point is, if you’re like me, when you hear stories of famous people who once failed, you quickly tell yourself why you’re not like that person and their story may not inspire you the way it was intended. In reality, all those people are normal humans just like the rest of us. And while we may not ever be a famous inventor, TV personality, athlete, author, or musician, we can do the EXACT same things that each of those people did. We can learn from our failures and use them to make us stronger.
I mentioned in a previous episode how I began working at a bookstore to pay my way through college and soon enjoyed working more than I enjoyed school. After working for the company for 5 years I was approached by the regional manager about entering into the manager training program. I was now the assistant manager at the store I was working at and he thought that I would be good at managing my own store. I thought about it, but I really wanted to get into the buying team at the corporate office. I did not see myself working at the store as a career.
Some time passed, maybe six months or so, and he approached me again. This time, after thinking and praying about it, I accepted his invitation to enter the manager training program. This meant that I would be relocating to Lubbock, TX to help open a new store and train under that manager. After 10 months of training, my day arrived. An opportunity had opened up to manage the location in Wichita Falls, TX and I had been selected to take the helm.
The store was in rough shape when I arrived. Issues ranged from a general lack of cleanliness and organization, to poor inventory management and even some service issues. I worked with the employees and addressed issues that were needed and the store began to see improvements. My second year there we had the biggest jump in customer satisfaction scores of any store in the company and we had one of the best inventory scores.
Then one day another call came. It was one of the head buyers at the corporate office and he wanted to know if I’d be interested in interviewing for a buying position. In my mind his timing was perfect. We were expecting our first child and were hoping there would be a way we could relocate back to where our families lived. Besides, my dream was still to be a buyer. I had no desire to stay as a store manager for the rest of my career.
A short time later I was offered the buying position and we moved back home. Here’s where my rose colored story gets thorny. It turned out that for the first time in my career, I was struggling. I was having trouble grasping some of the reports, I was having trouble staying organized, and it began to snowball. After a year and a half, I was replaced.
Fortunately, I was not fired. I had a meeting with the owner of the company. He said that they didn’t want to lose me as an employee. I’d done a great job as a store manager and they wanted to get me back into that area so I could excel and help the company in the best way possible. I was grateful to have a job, but failure sucked. It was embarrassing. It was defeating. It was even confusing.
They didn’t have an immediate opening as a store manager so I worked at one of the local stores for the time being. After about six months, the regional manager and I had a meeting. He wanted to know where my mental state was and how I felt about moving back out of state. I still really didn’t see my future as a store manager, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t really have any marketable skills outside of this company. After all, I’d dropped out of college so that I could work more at the bookstore.
He told me that I was at a crossroads. I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life. He asked me what I would do if I could do anything in the company. He also said that if I needed to get the education necessary to do that, then go do it. I would have to pay for it, of course. I said that I’d like to be a part of the computer programming team. I spoke with the head of that department, and while he couldn’t promise me a job, he encouraged me to get the education I needed to be qualified.
I took several CLEP tests and went to school on nights and weekends. Thirteen months later, I had a Bachelors Degree in Information Technology, specializing in computer programming. I even graduated magna cum laude. Unfortunately, the IT director did not have a job for me. I would later find out that he spoke to the guy who was my boss as a buyer and that he’d given me a bad recommendation.
So here I was, back at square one. I’d failed as a buyer, gone back to school and worked my butt off to get a degree, and there was no job for me. I kept working at the store but felt really dejected. The company was opening up a lot of stores around that time so I traveled quite a bit and worked to set up the new stores and train the staff. I have great memories from those days.
One day the president of the company came to me and asked me about my degree and what I’d studied. He wanted to know if I had any experience building websites, specifically e-commerce websites. I told him that I did have experience building websites and gave him access to the e-commerce site that I built as part of my degree program. We had a lot of meetings after that. We talked about my experiences at the stores and as a buyer. We talked about business philosophy and e-commerce strategies. We had a lot in common.
Once things settled down with building new stores he made me a formal offer. It was an offer to take on a brand new position that he was creating. I would be put in charge of taking the company into the digital age and developing our e-commerce website. He told me that I was uniquely qualified because of my knowledge of both the operational and buying sides of the company. He also needed someone with an IT and programming background.
I learned that my failure as a buyer was not a failure at all. Oh sure, it could have been. If I had allowed it to defeat me or if I’d allow it to keep me from believing in myself then it would have been a failure. Instead, my failure opened my eyes to what I was lacking. It propelled me to the next phase of my life. Without that failure I’d never gone back to school and I would not have been qualified or prepared when the next opportunity came my way.
We ALL fail. But every failure is a teaching moment. There are lessons in failure that simply aren’t found anywhere else. When you find yourself in the midst of failure first look to see what you can learn from what got you there. Then, dust yourself off, pick yourself up, and reset your course. Congratulations, you’ve just made it one step closer to success!
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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