Becoming an Epic Failure

Today I was informally coaching one of my friends for an upcoming interview she has for a new job that she is seeking.  We talked about questions that she may face from the interviewer, pros and cons of the job that she is seeking, and her innate strengths and weakness.  As we talked, the subject of past mistakes came up.  We talked about whether to admit past mistakes to an interviewer.  I told her that thinking through and acknowledging past failures and mistakes often lead to our biggest life lessons and successes. 

I told her that it is GREAT to embrace our epic fails.

The Urban Dictionary defines an epic fail as, “ A mistake of such monumental proportions that it requires its own term in order to successfully point out the unfathomable shortcomings of the individual or group”

I have been an epic failure many times in my life.  It comes with the territory as a veterinarian, business owner and even as a mother. (My adult children sometimes get together and point out all the mistakes I made as their mother when they were growing up – with unconditional love of course). 

As I look back on my “fails” I can see where each one of them worked to make me a better person and lead me to a better place in my life.

I think my most significant epic fail was the time I was fired from my first veterinary job.  I was just out of veterinary school and I got a job with a 4-doctor practice where I was the only woman veterinarian.   One of the owners of the practice was a staunch male chauvinist, but basically a nice guy.   He just didn’t think women were as capable as men and was not afraid to say so.   He hired me anyway for some reason and our up and down relationship began.  I learned many things from him over the 3 years, (as he was a good veterinarian) but along the way I became more and more disturbed by his lack of what I perceived as moral character.  He would do things like hide money to avoid paying his fair share of taxes and keep pets that he had promised to euthanize.  When I first started working there I saw the improprieties, but I was too young or stupid to do anything about it.  As I worked there longer and longer it started to bother me and I knew that I did not want to be a veterinarian that did not have a strong moral character.  I began to challenge him and when he grew tired of me telling him how to run his business, I was fired. 

Being fired from a job that you have been dreaming about your whole life feels like a death.  You go through all the stages of grief.  (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance). After I had navigated those stages, I decided to look for the lesson that I was supposed to learn from it all. 

Fast forward to my current position as a veterinary hospital owner, leadership and life coach.  If I had not experienced the epic failure of being fired from my first job I would have never ended up with my current practice.  That lesson was the most significant event in my professional life. When I saw the veterinarian many years later at an event, I thanked him and told him that he had done me a huge favor by firing me.

So each time you have a small failure or even an “Epic Failure”, try not to use it to beat yourself up.  See it as a steppingstone on your path to success.  Really examine the situation and seek to find the lesson that it holds for you and how you can use the failure to change course and move on to success.  Don’t hide your mistakes from others.  Successful people fail the most because they risk the most.

Become an Epic Failure!

“Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action. The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure — and actually fail — the greater your chances of success.”  John Maxwell.

Dr. Julie Cappel