“Oh, you’re that woman from Target!” exclaimed Jim.

“What do you mean by “that woman”?” I wondered out loud.

“You don’t know what happened, do you?” he asked, shaking his head.

I was at a networking event where I met Jim who worked for a company I had interviewed with a year before.

We were talking about failures and I shared my interviewing story.

I spoke with 10 people at his company and each interview was better than the next. I was invited to meet with the CMO the next day.

I walked into the CMO’s office feeling confident that I’d receive an offer. Instead, I walked out with a deflated ego, no job offer, and a distinct feeling of failure. What had gone wrong?

In 24 hours I had gone from being on top of the world, expecting to receive a job offer to being a failure. I wondered, “What went wrong? How did I fail at this? Was I not prepared enough or passionate enough?” I couldn’t answer those questions, yet I knew I had failed miserably. I was a failure.

But now, Jim was answering why I was turned down.

The CMO received a call the night before my interview from a former employee. They had quit their job and wanted to work with the CMO again. Guess who got the job?

Jim said the hiring manager was really upset. She and all of her colleagues thought I was the best fit for the job, but she didn’t have the final word.

A wave of relief came over me. I wasn’t a failure after all.

What did I learn from that experience?

We don’t always know why things happen. We can do everything perfectly and we still can’t control the outcome.

When the outcome is unfavorable and we don’t know why it doesn’t mean that we failed.

And even if we did fail, we can create a growth vs a fixed mindset by thinking about what we learned from our failure; what will we do differently?

It comes down to our mindset around failure. Whether you think you are a failure or you think you’ve learned from a failure, you are right! What if you changed your mindset to a learning one vs. a failure one? What if you viewed failure as success in progress?

If you want to learn to change your mindset around failure, join me on Wednesday 3/1/23 at 11:00 AM OR 6:00 PM for a free webinar.

You can register here or reply to this email to sign up. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/from-failure-to-success-tickets-546062005157

Peace, Joy, and Success,