“Do what you fear and watch it disappear” – Elizabeth Smith and Mindy Grossman.
It takes immense will power, and an attitude to learn from failures to be successful. I consider myself fortunate enough that I had a chance to interact with the top two CEO’s – Mindy Grossman (CEO HSNi), and Liz Smith (CEO Bloomin’ Brands), at one of the Hall of Fame Speaker Series event at The University of Tampa. Me, being a student adviser to the Dean of the College of Business got an opportunity to talk to them one-on-one, and that experience changed my entire thought process of fear of failure and success.
‘Fear and ‘Success’ do not go together. The fear of failure is what stops you from taking decisions, which could have changed your entire perspective towards life and business. So what is the solution?
‘Fail faster’ – Liz Smith.
I asked Ms. Liz Smith as to what can be the solution of the fear of failure? She said – “Then fail faster. Life expectancy nowadays is pretty good”. Isn’t that profound? I mean it is logical. If you fail now at the age of 25, you have your whole life to start up fresh again. But if you delay your failure just because your fear, you may fail at the age of 60.
‘There are 3 kinds of employees: evangelist, people in the middle, and blockers’ – Mindy Grossman
I asked Ms. Mindy Grossman as to how does she observe if someone in the firm is productive or not? And how does she decide to hire and fire them?
She said, “There are 3 kinds of people in an organization:
Evangelist – the ones who are very excited to accept change and work hard to succeed. You must retain them and hire them.
People in the Middle- they are the ones who are not very enthusiastic, and wait for a change to occur and are a bit confused if that change would create any good. You give them a chance.
Blockers- these are the people who need to go. They are toxic, and you need to fire them, if you want to be a successful businessman.
And during this process, do not forget the vision of the company.”
I am truly inspired by the thought process that these two amazingly successful personalities have, and talking to them personally has created a serious impact on me. So don’t fear to fail, take calculated risks, and help create a change in the existing business arena and society.
I would like to end my blog today by quoting Ms. Mindy Grossman- ‘Take risks, but remember there is a difference between taking risks and committing suicide.’ and Ms. Liz Smith- ‘Change is inevitable, if you do not change with time, you will fall apart.’
Arnab Pandey 