You've experienced failure. How can you use it to build your personal brand?

The lessons you get from failure are invaluable. Whether it's during an interview or on stage in front of an audience, I've found the moments that resonate the most are the ones that have lessons. The ones that include a '... And I had no idea ...' moment followed by the '... that's why I don't _____ anymore ...' wrap-up, let the listener know that I'm human and always growing through this human experience — that I'm aware enough to know a painful mistake was made, but a lesson was learned from it, showcasing the wisdom gained.

I have failed badly, twice. I can't imagine how my personal brand would have grown without those failures. There are 3 key things that have changed. 1. Resilience. I'm mentally stronger now having faced bad failures and learnt to cope with them, without losing focus and disappearing into a spiral. 2. Focus. It forced me to focus on areas of my business I had tried to ignore - especially financial. I learned so much about P&Ls & cashflow that I didn't have a clue about beforehand. 3. Shaped goals. Beforehand my objectives were ambiguous but now they're more focused. How does this impact my personal brand? Well, I talk about the failures - I share the stories. And that makes my brand more honest, more transparent and more trustworthy.

I don't believe in failure, because I have a pivot and learning mentality. When something is going wrong or bad, I pivot. And keep pivoting until I find success. And throughout the process, I'm learning the whole way. So failure doesn't exist in my world.

Failure is an opportunity for two reasons: 1) To learn from. Then it is not a failure, it becomes a lesson learned. 2) To signal to others in your organization and stakeholders, that we: A) Encourage people to try, B) We forgive those who try but missed the target (better luck and execution next time). A and B fosters an organization of people who take initiatives and take responsibility (leadership!)

I love this question. I've worked in Social Media and Digital for over 20 years, and regularly tell my team that if we're not failing regularly, we're not trying hard enough. In Social Media especially, the name of the game is experimentation. Culture, language and algorithms evolve daily and Social Media is created for fleeting moments in time. Given those conditions, it's smart to expect a miss once in a while. Going into any project acknowledging that it could hit OR miss reframes your approach to a learning and optimization mindset. Be curious about how your outputs will land with their target audience, test where you can and delve into the data to learn more about what you'd do differently next time. The takeaways shape your brand.

Failure is like that eccentric director. Just as I’m perfecting the role as an actor, the master decides to abandon the movie. Then he cruelly signs me up for the next. Economic downturn layoff, boots I thought I was entitled to but were just too large to fill, awards I was confident about but was a kick in the hemorrhoids. These failures aren’t embarrassing snot bubbles. They're large neon signs. Honest, bitter commands I knew had my best interest at heart. With each failure turned lesson, I had little choice but to hone my skills, fine-tune my approach, and embrace the chaos of this unpredictable journey. Picking me by the scruff of my collar, he got me back in. He wouldn’t have if he wasn’t confident about me. Thank you, Director Saab.