Why I changed 'no regrets' to 'more reflection'.
Telana Simpson
I help talented people have no regrets in life by having courageous conversations that count
I have been saying for a few years now, that my “elevator pitch” (the shortest version to explain what I am about when I have 30 seconds in an elevator to catch someone’s attention) was:
“I help talented people have no regrets by having the conversations that count.”
Having been learning more and more about the fear of failure (about how it manifests in our lives and holds us back and also how to overcome it), I have come to realise that regrets are a useful signal and not something to avoid.
The fear of failure and how that reflects in our feelings of worth is a huge part of contributing to us not living fully.
Yet we will always have moments of failure if we are growing and learning and expanding. And these are elements of a life well lived.
Brené Brown helped with a lightbulb moment on this topic, when she said in “Rising Strong”:
“Regret… is a call to courage and path towards wisdom. Like all emotions, regret can be used constructively or destructively, but the wholesale dismissal of regret is wrongheaded and dangerous. ‘No regrets’ doesn’t mean living with courage, it means living without reflection. To live without regret is to believe you have nothing to learn, no amends to make, and no opportunity to be braver with your life”.
And so regret is now for me about why we put in the effort, and how we turn the failure into learnings and then do better next time.
Regret is what gets us to take note to something important and do the sometimes very hard work of reflection. Because it is only through facing our failures and learning from them, that we can experience more of life and live fully, without shrinking or holding back.
So my ‘adjusted elevator pitch’ is now more along the lines of:
“I help talented people have the conversations that count with more courage and reflection.”
But hey, it’s a work in progress, and always open for reflection.
Here’s to more regrets from a life well lived!
Telana
Q: What are your thoughts and feelings about regrets? Do share in the comments below
About Telana Simpson
Telana is a Courage Coach and author, helping people to be brave and shine, and live a life they love. She coaches executives, individuals and entrepreneurs to have conversations that count by finding their authentic ways of communicating and expressing themselves and their inner potentials. She specialises in true self-esteem, controlling emotions, overcoming self-consciousness and the fear of failure, handling conflict, fear of confrontation and developing relationships. She is fascinated by consciousness evolution and goes on adventures to push her boundaries and preconceptions. She is also a possibility believer and is currently turning one matchstick into an office, to help start ups overcome the fear of failure.
(This article was first published in the Courage Circle)
International SME business strategy and mentoring in Searching FOR Customers sales strategy, sales activity methodology and sales management
3yHi Telana, I like the change in words. Regret unfortunately can sometimes have a negative perception when people say they regret having done something, or did something they wish they should or should not have done, For me our lives are a road map, some roads we choose to go down, others we should perhaps have gone down but did not. Every moment we spend worrying or thinking about the past. is a moment we waste not being present and learning from experiences not regretting them.
Asset Finance for Business
3y("Elevator pitch", do you have Pilot friends?)