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
