FTL – Your Failure Tolerance Level. Do you know what it is? Do you know WHY it’s at that level? In researching the traits that make the transition from executive to entrepreneur possible, one of the primary areas that kept appearing was the whole concept of failure. Most corporate environments do not encourage failure. Starting with our educational system and moving into a corporate environment, we get “failure avoidance” tattoed into our business DNA. And if you do fail, your primary objective is to make sure that either no one finds out or that if they do, you are not seen as the person responsible. The result can be that we allow that perspective to shift our own creative set point mentally and emotionally. It explains why some research shows that even though over 50% of corporate executives say they think they would prefer an entreprenuerial venture, only 30% of that group (or 15% of the total group) will actually make the leap. They rationally know that failure is part of success. And since they are highly evolved in the area of failure avoidance – they also end up avoiding success.
If this is what is holding you back, one of the best people out there for you to latch on to is Seth Godin. He is the thought leader of several generations on the subject of change in our marketplace and our lives. And on this particulary topic, he delivers pure gold in his book Poke the Box. Here’s what he has to say:
“Imagine that the world had no middlemen, no publishers, no bosses, no HR folks, no one telling you what you couldn’t do.
If you lived in that world, what would you do?
Go. Do that.”
Take the next 20 minutes and invest in raising your FTL – and maybe, just maybe, change your world. Ready? Go.
