In this Expert Insight Interview, Alina Timofeeva discusses failure. Alina Timofeeva is a multi-award-winning female leader in cloud, data, and digital. She is also a TEDx speaker, mentor, and podcaster. Her TEDx talk Fail but Never Give Up has over 355,000 views, is getting translated into 30 languages, and is in the top 10 world’s most-watched TEDx speeches.
This Expert Insight Interview discusses:
- Why failure can be the biggest catalyst for change
- How to take action even when you don’t feel like it
- Getting past the obstacles of failure and rejection
Failure
Failure is a loaded word, and people interpret it in many different ways. Although it has the same meaning, it has a different connotation for most people. For Alina, failure is when you want to do something, but you don’t get the outcome you wanted to achieve.
In her talk, she put out a lot of arguments that failure is an opportunity to grow, so instead of looking at it as a setback, you can see it as a way to develop and become a better person. Our biggest lessons often come from failure.
Action
It often takes hitting rock bottom for us to make real, fundamental changes, but not everybody is equipped to do that. So, how can people reorient their attitude to failure and look at it and embrace it as a learning opportunity or an opportunity to change and grow?
For Alina, the answer to this question lies in action. People tend to wait for a sign to take action, and she believes that this is the wrong approach. Do not wait for inspiration; take action, even if you just take small steps.
Overcoming the Pain
Sometimes people allow themselves to think that other people have a better idea of how good they are and set the agenda for their life going forward. Instead of allowing that to happen, successful people look for the next best step to move forward.
The important, and most challenging part of this entire idea, is that it is pretty hard to find this change in your mindset. For example, when Alina moved to the UK, she applied for 500 jobs and got declined for 497 of them. No matter how persistent you are and how upbeat your personality is, getting rejected 497 times still hurts. Getting past this pain is what separates the biggest winners from the rest.
Our Host
John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.
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