I just had an email from a woman. She has started a business as a professional photographer. At first everything was going great. Then she was hired to photograph a very important event. She was devastated to discover there had been a glitch. As a result none of the photographs were usable. She took this as a big failure and is wondering how she attracted this.
To this there is only one thing to say: the only difference between the successful people and those who are failures is that the successful ones keep on going. They don’t let a mistake or a failure stop them in their tracks. And, who cares if you attracted it or not? This is probably not karmic retribution for something bad you did. Sometimes stuff just happens, learn what you can from it and move on.
This “failure” reminded me of the time I walked smack into a concrete pillar. I was in the middle of a presentation to about 150 high school seniors. They couldn’t stifle their giggles. I had to laugh myself, too. It was pretty amazing how I managed not to see an eight-foot wide column. If I had let this mistake stop me, I wouldn’t be speaking today at fabulous places like the Ritz in London and New York. Mind you, I do keep a sharp eye out for those pesky pillars!
Don’t let a few mistakes get you down. I don’t know of a single professional who hasn’t had a few failures. Just do what you can to apologize and make amends. Then set up systems and backups so the mistakes don’t happen again. Finally, keep going forward.
