Lots happened this year.

I changed my hair. My dog started barking more. I moved to a different place. I got married. And I've fucked-up several times.

It's nice to talk about successes, but necessary to talk about the fuck-ups.

Fuck-up #1:

My music career on Youtube didn't take off. I bought a camera, a new microphone (a good one) and even trained my dog to sit beside me while I recorded.

I did a few songs then got bored.

Loss - about $1.5k and lots of hours.

Lesson - I realised that's not what I want to do forever. I want to be selfish and keep the music stuff to myself. I stop enjoying it when I'm trying to make money with it.

Fuck-up #2:

Online course for storytelling in business.

I was a little smarter with this - I spent hours creating the website and copywriting. I spend hours learning how to use google ads to get some traffic on the website. And I had a few people express interest in it.

I never created the course. I wanted to see if there was any demand out there for it first.

Loss - about 1k testing the market and a few hours

Lesson - don't create the product before making certain people are ready to buy

Fuck-up #3:

I created an online community for high-achievers. I called it the Bootleg MBA and I was certain it would be something a lot of people would opt-in to.

It gathered 5-6 paying community members and I did webinars every week on various topics. I also posted everyday and put a lot of effort into encouraging participation.

It didn't take off.

Loss - $1.5k

Lesson - understand the customer motivation. The demographic I was going for (people between 20-35) weren't willing to pay for self-development. They could find so much online, they didn't need more information. They didn't share a common challenge.

Fuck-up #4:

I lost a $150,000 deal. Part of my job is B2B sales and this was a big deal for us. I had 7 people to convince and make a relationship with. I convinced 6, and left the 7th alone. He was an old and grumpy man and I thought having 6/7 people on board would be enough. I didn't spend the extra time I should have with him.

That cost me the deal.

Loss: $150,000

Lesson - Every relationship is important. One person can put a halt to all the work you've done and all the progress you've made. Don't underestimate the power of one voice.

You might be wondering why I used a bit of profanity in this article and said ‘fuck-up’ instead of ‘failure’. My reason is this: the words make it more real. ‘Failure’ doesn’t hurt me. ‘Fuck-up’ makes me feel like I accidentally killed a man with an ice-cream cone. It makes it hurt more - and I want it to.

That's my goal for next year. Keep pushing. Keep trying. Keep going.

And it's fun too.

Question for you to think about:

What were your biggest fuck-ups this year and what did you learn from them? 

Harry

P.S. if you enjoyed this, fucking share it. Um.. sorry I’ll stop swearing now. Got drunk with power for a second.