The Power of Failure

Could an Executive Coach/Business Writer get invited to join Strictly Come Dancing?

Not this year…! 😂💃

We have to dream though right? I love finding left-field ways to make things real for clients – so I’m applying the same logic to myself!

I hired a professional dancer as an alternative coach for myself in March. I have a solo spot in an interval where Union Gap are playing (remember them?!) in December as a surprise to my Mum…as of today, I am still not good enough to pull that off.

But I’m on my quest again to prove that you can absolutely teach an old dog new tricks. Our brains are infinitely plastic – able to learn and ‘wire in’ almost anything with practise. We might not end up being a natural, but if we are motivated enough to persevere through repeated failure, we can become competent.

Learning to fail is key. This highlights a science study which looked at the % of failure for optimal learning. Can you guess what it is?

But we get in our own way, tell ourselves ‘I’m past it’, ‘I’ve never been any good at that sort of thing’ or ‘I’ll start next year when I’m fitter’

At work this can reframe itself into a more commercial grown-up sounding ‘I’ll do that next FY when things are less busy’ or as someone once said to me about developing their emotional intelligence ‘that’s what the HR team are for’ (it was a long time ago!)🤦‍♀️

The World Economic Forum study in 2023 studied 803 organisations world-wide and suggests within 5 years, 44% of the skills we require at work will change. A labour market churn of 23% is predicted – new jobs being created and old ones becoming obsolete.

If we stick with what we know, there’s a danger we won’t be as valuable as we once were.

My favourite moment when I do the ‘arm-folding activity that many of you will have seen if I have trained or been at a conference with you, is a plain and simple, ‘I can’t do it’.

One thing is for sure, if you say ‘I can’t’ aloud, you certainly don’t improve your chances as you are multi-tasking!

Back to dancing, knowing this science is why I make a point of learning to do things I have zero skill in. It means I get more used to total failure – and prove to myself I can work through it.

Since I turned 40 I have learnt to surf (standing up on dodgy hips) and play the guitar (I failed to master piano, clarinet and flute at school before they gave up on me!). I’m on a 683 streak on Duolingo (scraped a C in Spanish GCSE), but I’m proud to be failing at French because it is evidence I am persisting regardless.

You know when you see the guests get brilliant at dancing over the weeks so that by Christmas, sometimes you can’t tell the celebrity and the professional dancer apart?

I wanted to be that person and sadly am not! But I have 4 weeks, a patient teacher and more failure for brain-fuel before then…

Hope this video helps inspire you to start something new you will fail at to begin with – why not actually sign up this morning?