{"id":15110,"date":"2014-10-03T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tested-neuron.flywheelsites.com\/?p=15110"},"modified":"2017-08-15T14:48:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-15T20:48:01","slug":"good-at-failing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Be Good at Failing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past year has taught me a lot about failure<\/strong>. By all accounts, it\u2019s been successful year. My business grew from zero to over 200 stores, we\u2019ve been featured multiple times on national television and we just raised $500,000 in investment. At the same time, there isn\u2019t a day that goes by when I don\u2019t get rejected, by everyone from potential customers to buyers at national grocery stores.<\/p>\n

When you shoot for the moon, you\u2019re going to get battered by rejection long before you reach any stars. I\u2019ve found that the key to continuing the journey is to not let failing make you feel like a failure. This is where optimism comes in.<\/p>\n

The key to continuing the journey is to not let failing make you feel like a failure.<\/i> Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Research has long shown that optimists are more successful than pessimists<\/a>. People who see the glass half full make more money, have happier marriages and live longer than the cynics of the world. Optimism is a particularly important skill for entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

Starting a new venture is like riding the world\u2019s wildest roller coaster. One minute you\u2019re on top of the world; the next you\u2019re so deep in a hole that you don\u2019t know if you\u2019ll ever again see the light. Optimists bask in the glory at the top of the mountain and assume that the valleys will pass. Pessimists are more likely to dismiss their success as a fluke and blame themselves when bad things happen.<\/p>\n

My company, Kuli Kuli<\/a>, had a roller coaster ride recently when we were featured on MSNBC\u2019s Morning Joe<\/a> show with only two days advance notice. We\u2019d decided to test out a new product, our Moringa Superfood Powder, the week before to see how it sold online before releasing it into stores. The day we were featured on Morning Joe, we received over $30,000 in orders, most of them for our new moringa powder. At the time, we had 50 powder units in stock and were doing all of our order fulfillment ourselves.<\/p>\n

Just as you can train your body to adapt to running long distances, you can train your mind towards positivity.<\/i> Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The glory of being on national television faded quickly when I began receiving tons of angry emails from customers accustomed to Amazon-style two-day shipping. We source all of our moringa from women\u2019s cooperatives in Ghana. Getting those moringa leaves off the tree and into our jars took longer than usual, given the large order and lack of advance notice. Add to that the fact that we\u2019re a small team unaccustomed to fulfilling thousands of orders ourselves.<\/p>\n

The pessimist might have said that we were over our head and should stop making big television appearances until we had our act together. But the optimist in me insisted that this was a learning opportunity. We worked closely with our suppliers to ensure that we would always have enough moringa in stock to meet demand. We also found an incredible fulfillment house that employs people with autism to fulfill our online orders\u2014enabling us to respond quickly to large orders and keeping in line with our social mission.<\/p>\n

Failing is absolutely the best way to learn. So much so that startup geeks call it \u201cpivoting.\u201d In order to turn a bad situation into a \u201cpivot,\u201d you need to catch yourself in a moment of despondency and re-focus that negative energy into realizing what you can learn from the situation.<\/p>\n

Turning challenges into learnings is the greatest skill that any entrepreneur can learn.<\/i> Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Re-focusing your mind on the sunny side of things isn\u2019t easy, especially when your prospects look bleak. But just as you can train your body to adapt to running long distances, you can train your mind towards positivity. For me, that means taking a moment at the end of every day to write down one thing that went well. One experiment showed that just doing this for a week boosted happiness for up to six months.<\/p>\n

In a culture so focused on success, it\u2019s easy to forget the importance of failure. If you aren\u2019t failing, you aren\u2019t trying hard enough. Learning how to be optimistic despite setbacks is key\u2014turning challenges into learnings is the greatest skill any entrepreneur can learn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a culture so focused on success, it\u2019s easy to forget the importance of failure\u2014turning challenges into learnings is the greatest skill any entrepreneur can learn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":15146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[476,1510,1511],"tags":[2247,450,32,1061,461,349,1414,119,371],"class_list":["post-15110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-career","category-failure","tag-article","tag-career","tag-failure","tag-guest-post-2","tag-how-to","tag-lessons","tag-curtis","tag-success","tag-wisdom"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Be Good at Failing - UNREASONABLE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Be Good at Failing - UNREASONABLE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a culture so focused on success, it\u2019s easy to forget the importance of failure\u2014turning challenges into learnings is the greatest skill any entrepreneur can learn.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Unreasonable\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-03T11:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-08-15T20:48:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lisa Curtis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisacurtis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lisa Curtis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":[\"Article\",\"BlogPosting\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lisa Curtis\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/ce2589b3eeadbbd6962c3522396eb99c\"},\"headline\":\"How to Be Good at Failing\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-03T11:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-15T20:48:01+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/\"},\"wordCount\":738,\"commentCount\":271,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Article\",\"Career\",\"Failure\",\"guest post\",\"how to\",\"lessons\",\"Lisa Curtis\",\"success\",\"wisdom\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Article\",\"Career\",\"Failure\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/\",\"name\":\"How to Be Good at Failing - UNREASONABLE\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-03T11:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-08-15T20:48:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/ce2589b3eeadbbd6962c3522396eb99c\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":450,\"caption\":\"Photo from Creative Commons\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to Be Good at Failing\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/\",\"name\":\"Unreasonable\",\"description\":\"We believe in the power of business to drive lasting, scalable change.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/ce2589b3eeadbbd6962c3522396eb99c\",\"name\":\"Lisa Curtis\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76eb644f3a31300671aa2ca0db88bcbd0e05a660a7fe65c0ea3eca6b4a450c2b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76eb644f3a31300671aa2ca0db88bcbd0e05a660a7fe65c0ea3eca6b4a450c2b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Lisa Curtis\"},\"description\":\"Lisa Curtis is founder and CEO of Kuli Kuli, a mission-driven food startup selling delicious products made with moringa. Lisa founded Kuli Kuli after serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, West Africa. She was the Communications Director at Mosaic, wrote political briefings for President Obama in the White House, and worked at an impact investment firm in India.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.lisamariecurtis.com\/\",\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/lisamariecurtis\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisacurtis\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Be Good at Failing - UNREASONABLE","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to Be Good at Failing - UNREASONABLE","og_description":"In a culture so focused on success, it\u2019s easy to forget the importance of failure\u2014turning challenges into learnings is the greatest skill any entrepreneur can learn.","og_url":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/","og_site_name":"Unreasonable","article_published_time":"2014-10-03T11:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-08-15T20:48:01+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":450,"url":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lisa Curtis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisacurtis","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lisa Curtis","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/"},"author":{"name":"Lisa Curtis","@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/ce2589b3eeadbbd6962c3522396eb99c"},"headline":"How to Be Good at Failing","datePublished":"2014-10-03T11:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-08-15T20:48:01+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/"},"wordCount":738,"commentCount":271,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg","keywords":["Article","Career","Failure","guest post","how to","lessons","Lisa Curtis","success","wisdom"],"articleSection":["Article","Career","Failure"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/","url":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/","name":"How to Be Good at Failing - UNREASONABLE","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg","datePublished":"2014-10-03T11:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-08-15T20:48:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/ce2589b3eeadbbd6962c3522396eb99c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg","width":1200,"height":450,"caption":"Photo from Creative Commons"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/good-at-failing\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to Be Good at Failing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#website","url":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/","name":"Unreasonable","description":"We believe in the power of business to drive lasting, scalable change.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/ce2589b3eeadbbd6962c3522396eb99c","name":"Lisa Curtis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76eb644f3a31300671aa2ca0db88bcbd0e05a660a7fe65c0ea3eca6b4a450c2b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76eb644f3a31300671aa2ca0db88bcbd0e05a660a7fe65c0ea3eca6b4a450c2b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Lisa Curtis"},"description":"Lisa Curtis is founder and CEO of Kuli Kuli, a mission-driven food startup selling delicious products made with moringa. Lisa founded Kuli Kuli after serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, West Africa. She was the Communications Director at Mosaic, wrote political briefings for President Obama in the White House, and worked at an impact investment firm in India.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.lisamariecurtis.com\/","http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/lisamariecurtis","https:\/\/x.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisacurtis"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/lc5.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15110"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37385,"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15110\/revisions\/37385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}