Don’t Be Afraid To Fail – Your Wealth Will Thank You

Don’t Be Afraid To Fail – Your Wealth Will Thank You

FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is one of the major issues kids and adults alike are facing these days. Being able to see that your friends are at a party that you weren’t invited to on social media (Snapchat) makes this even worse for kids.

For us older folks, this may not be as much of a concern as it is for our kids, but it’s definitely real none the less.

As parents, we MUST be vigilant in teaching our kids about another type of failure…the fear of failure. They must learn that it’s OK to fail as it helps pave the way to success!

And it’s also OK for us adults to fail too.

Don’t Be Afraid To Fail

Nobody WANTS to be a failure. But if you want to find the most direct path to success in life then you must realize it’s going to taking failing…actually failing often.

Famous failures

If you’re an avid Shark Tank fan like myself, then you realize that a common trait shared by many of those pitching to the sharks is failure.

As a matter of fact, most if not ALL of the sharks have had failures which eventually led to their massive success.

The list of famous people that have failed is endless but two familiar ones are:

Thomas Edison – Mr. Edison actually failed 10,000 times before he created the light bulb.

Michael Jordan – If you haven’t watched The Last Dance: The Untold Story Of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls documentary, then do so NOW.

Jordan’s mom was interviewed on the show and described in detail about the day that MJ came home crying after he FAILED to make the varsity basketball team. How’s that for a failure?

Causes Of Fear Of Failure

Failing means something different to each person. Failure to me might be nothing more than a learning experience for you.

We start to see problems when we develop a FEAR of failure (similar to a fear of money) which can paralyze us from moving forward to achieving our goals.

There can be several causes where we develop this fear but two main sources are:

#1 Parents/coach/teacher

Many times we acquire a fear of failure in childhood from a critical parent or undermining coach/teacher.

Especially if they humiliated us in front of our peers which would cause us to carry those negative feels into adulthood.

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#2 Traumatic life event

Another main source where our fear of failure stems from is experiencing a traumatic event at some point in our lives.

The #1 fear that people have is the fear of public speaking which is actually ahead of death and spiders!

I can attest to this as a few years ago I had to give a talk in front of 1,000 people.

Typically the audiences I was used to was under 50 people so the thought of speaking to 1,000+ people was frightening.

Luckily, I got through it but now understand what the thought of speaking in front of a large group of people can do to your nerves.

Sometimes when people go through this type of experience and freeze up, it causes so much devastation that they can become afraid of failing at other things too.

Remember, don’t be afraid to fail!

Passive Vs Active Failure

Experiencing a failure and being labeled a failure are two totally different things.

To help with this confusion, let’s categorize failure into:

Passive and Active

Passive failure

We’re all quite familiar with passive failure, especially during our time spent in the classroom. If we didn’t study for a test then there was a good chance that we failed.

This is an example of passive failure where we put forth little to no effort and have poor results to show for it.

Other areas we frequently see this in are sports (didn’t practice) or relationships.

The best thing you can hope for from this type of failure is learning whatever negative life lesson that comes about when you don’t try.

Active failure

I recently asked my 15 year old, “What’s it called when a baby tries to walk but falls down?” He didn’t hesitate to answer, “Learning“.

Nobody would call this failing as the baby is trying to walk. It’s a gradual process or repeated attempts and falling down that eventually leads to the path of success (walking).

This is an example of active failure. We try, fail, adjust, learn and repeat the process.

Yet somewhere between the time when we’re infants to adulthood, many of us develop a phobia about failing even though it’s necessary along the path to success.

Failure Done Right

Too many people fear failure because they let it shape their identity. They tell themselves, “I don’t want to be a failure so therefore I don’t try.”

Failure done right doesn’t define you, it refines you.

Life is dull, boring and meaningless unless you’re pushing against your limits. And remember these are YOUR limits, not someone else’s. The worst thing you can do during your learning process is compare yourself to others.

There’s ALWAYS going to be someone better, wealthier, better looking (well, maybe?:) ) bigger, faster and stronger than you.

If you want to improve in different areas of your life then unfortunately failure is going to be part of the deal.

But that’s OK because you CAN fix failure but you can’t fix the things you’ve never tried.

What do you wish you could do, but have never tried?

There’s so much out there to experience but too many of us fail to try….for fear of failure.

I’ve led a great life so far and hopefully the good Lord will allow me to continue to for many more years.

But, I’ve also had my share of defeats, too.

Let me tell you about one in particular…

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My Big Failure

I got into real estate investing after I realized my only source of income came from the dental practice.

After investing in a handful of smaller deals on crowdfunding sites, I set my sights on greener pastures and decided to dive into my first multifamily syndication.

If you want more details, you can read about it here:

Related article: What I Learned From Losing $50,000

The apartment complex was located in Oklahoma and had the following projections:

• cash on cash return = 6-8%
• internal rate of return (IRR) = 17.9% – 19.9%

At that time during my real estate investing career, I was CLUELESS. Shiny bright objects was the only way I knew to invest.

So whatever property looked the best and had the highest returns then I was all in.

Little did I know at the time I was setting myself up for failure but remember, we should never be afraid to fail!

Long story short, all investors lost their money and I could have given up…but didn’t.

This is the main event that pushed me to educating myself and now others on this blog, to help avoid the same types of mistakes I used to make.

Final Thoughts

Everything you want to accomplish in life is going to require a process of learning, attempting, failing, adjusting and repeating the process.

Failure is a nonnegotiable stop on the road to success.

Have you wanted to learn more about building passive income with real estate but the thought of failure has been holding you back?

Never fear!! Join the Free Passive Investors Circle today to get started on your road to success.