I have a question for you: what if you couldn’t fail?
Many of us are aspirational; you have plans; you have books you want to write. Maybe you have a business you want to start somebody you want to date.
Whatever it is, but I have no doubt that you’ve got some kind of aspirations that you’ve set for yourself this year and I have a big question, what if you couldn’t fail?
I’ve got five questions to lay behind it. I think for a lot of people what happens is they start something and embark on something, whether it’s building a property business, starting a business, writing a book, courting somebody and for some reason shit happens, life happens.
Someone happens, words in the ears somebody pisses all over a dream that you have whatever it is, and then all of a sudden, the doubts come in, the voice comes in and then you start to regress back, or you hide away.
Years and years ago we’re talking 30 years ago when I was in my 20s, I actually started a network marketing business and we sold household products. It was one of the business ideas that I took on and at the time I was eager to try something and learn and grow, but also generate revenue.
The skills I learned from that were immense.
One of the things that was raised early on in that network marketing business from the people helping me was what if you couldn’t fail what would you do? My head was like, oh my gosh, I’m young, people won’t take me seriously, this might not work, so they really drilled it into my brain. What if you couldn’t fail, what would you do?
I took that same philosophy into my PhD at the time as I was going through a tough time and all sorts of things happened during that period, one of which involved me getting seriously badly beaten up which resulted in my head being smashed against a car and me ending up in hospital.
Had to dust myself down, get back on my feet, and get back into my PhD. It knocked me off course for about two, three weeks and I remember saying to myself, what if I can’t fail? That’s my question to you, what if whatever you’re doing now you took it on and you just said what if I couldn’t fail?
There are five important questions that when I’m coaching somebody these are five things I ask them when we get to a point where we’re taking a certain action.
Whether it’s a tiny thing or a big thing the same fundamental question comes up and that is what if you couldn’t fail?
Number one what would you do in whatever it is you’re doing now, what would you do if you couldn’t fail in that business with that idea? What specifically would you do?
What are the things you’ve been afraid of doing up until now or resisting doing because there’s a little bit of a block in your head that says but I might fail. So what would that thing be?
What would those things be that you would take on if you couldn’t fail?
That’s the first question.
What would be the things that you would do on the basis that you can’t fail?
Yes, there will be setbacks and challenges, but if you just do it, what would you do?
The second question is who would you call?
Who would you have a conversation with?
The classic example is maybe you want to date somebody who would you call? Equally on a business front maybe you’re raising money for your business it might be for a retail business you’ve got to raise funding to start the business, or it might be a property related business related to raising money to get money from an angel. Who would you call if you knew you couldn’t fail?
That’s not to say they’re not going to say no but who would you call anyway?
Flip it on it’s head, what if they would definitely say yes to who you would call and then make that phone call because from the phone call creates inertia and with inertia comes a response.
The universe will push back in some way, shape or form. But in the pushing back we learn from that. Then what could you say yes to or who could you say yes to? If you couldn’t fail, who would you say yes to?
Just today I had a one-hour conversation looking at three different related property strategies. One was a project in London that was potentially being picked up off market for seven, £800,000 purchase price. Two or £300 worth of work doing on it potential profit, maybe three, £400,000.
Another one was a smaller strategy, which involved a very specific type of planning permission that had about 50 to £100,000 profit potentially in the deals and then another one was a slightly different property strategy all together, all of them we sat and yes, we want to give these ago.
We know there are some things we have to do, for example, who do we have to phone up because one of those involves some cash that may need to come in from somewhere else, my brain working out who we could call.
So what could you say yes to?
Who should you and could you and who must you say no to? Who have you been kind of semi-saying yes to keep them happy as you’re a pleaser? Because by saying yes to that person or to the opportunity is actually distracting you from another part, or maybe have you been saying yes to make life a bit easier because you are afraid to go and do the thing you need to do.
What if you said no to those things now?
So what do you know you need to say no to that you now need to say no to because failure is not an option here, so just say no to it and pass it by because you’ve got a different type of focus.
What I mean is, sometimes we have to say no to something in order to succeed at something else.
Finally, what are the possibilities? What if you couldn’t fail? How could your life be different? What kind of income could you produce for yourself? What opportunities could come your way? How would it look to be published with a book or audio program or product online?
Just think about the possibilities because most of the time we focus on what will happen if we fail.
But just forget all that.
Just take the lid off what could be the possibilities and that’s my final message.
Final summary, number one think about what would you do if you couldn’t fail? Who could you call if you knew you couldn’t fail in the conversation?
What could you say yes to that maybe you’ve said no to and if you said yes to what could that lead to and who do you need to say no to?
The only way to get to a point where you cannot fail is to be super focused, but that means saying no to something and then, finally, what are the possibilities?
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