You Need to Fail Better Not Avoid It w/ Summer Borkowski

You’re not stuck because nothing is working, you're stuck because you’re trying not to fail.

If you’ve been overthinking your next move, holding back from launching, or constantly questioning your decisions, today’s guest, Summer Borkowski, founder of Summer Gold, a beauty and wellness club, breaks down what’s actually happening when you fail. Avoiding failure might feel like a smart move, but it’s the exact thing keeping you from getting the clarity and momentum you need.

In this Business Chaser episode, Summer walks through what it really means to fail better, how to use failure as feedback instead of proof you’re doing something wrong, and why some of your best business decisions will come from things not working the first time.

So if you’ve been waiting to feel more confident before taking action, this will show you why trying is the only way forward.

Chapters:

00:24 Fear of failure in business

01:27 Why failing feels public

02:27 Reframing failure and self-worth

03:14 What failing better actually means

03:54 When a launch gets zero sales

04:32 How to get the right feedback

05:20 Adjusting pricing and offers

05:55 Why testing creates clarity

06:23 When to pivot or let go

07:20 Trusting your decisions

08:05 How failure drives growth

08:56 The mindset shift around failure

09:35 Overthinking and analysis paralysis

10:14 Using feedback from your audience

Connect with Summer:

Website: https://www.summergoldco.com/

Instagram: @summergoldco

Instagram: @sumshady

Let’s Stay Connected:
→ Follow Lauren on Instagram: www.instagram.com/laurennajar
→ Learn more or work with me: www.laurennajar.com
→ Follow Business Over Cocktails on IG: www.instagram.com/businessovercocktails
→ Attend Growth & Connect retreats & events: www.instagram.com/growthandconnect

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Business Chaser, your quick pour of strategy, clarity, and momentum. We skip the small talk and get straight to the strategy here in these bite-sized episodes. We're here to help you grow smarter, market better, and chase what matters all in 15 minutes or less. I'm your host, Lauren Najar. Tune in and let's chat.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Hi guys, welcome back to the podcast. This is Summer Borkowski. And something that I love to talk about because it's something that was so big in my own business journey is about failing better. And I know that sounds silly because failing, you think of a very negative thing and better. You're like, how do you fail better? You would think failing better means not failing at all, but that is so not the truth. I am someone who kind of grew up not like a total perfectionist, but like I really tied my self-worth to school when I was younger. And then as I started my career, I really tied my self-worth to my career and you know, promotions and raises and like, how can I be better and how can I be perfect? And so starting a business, it really throws you into the deep end of you will really learn what your fears are. And I learned very quickly that I had such a fear of failure. And starting a business, like if you are to fail, you feel like you're gonna fail so publicly. And I think that's what's so scary is a lot of us are kind of afraid to fail publicly, makes a lot of sense. However, I had to have a really kind of like a deep moment for myself where I had to let myself think, what if I failed? What if I completely burned my company to the ground? How would I feel about myself? How would others think about me? And I had to think of, you know, my best friend and my sister. I was like, what would I do? What would I think if they started a business and completely failed? And I immediately was like, oh my gosh, I'd be so proud of them for trying. And I would be like, all right, what's next? I know you're gonna do something amazing if this didn't work out for you. And it was kind of like such a healing moment of like, wow, wait, people think about that, about me like that. Like if I were to fail, they probably would also, the people who really like love me and care about me, would be just so proud of me for trying in the first place. And so I had to question, why am I not proud of myself for trying in the first place? And that could be just owning a business in general or whatever kind of things that you launch or new things that you try. You should just be a lot easier on yourself and know that failure is going to happen no matter what. And I think not being so attached to the outcome of how things are going to go is probably going to help your mental health a lot. So I want to kind of talk a little bit more about what failing better means. So I kind of talked about expect to fail. I don't mean expect to fail your business. You should not be living life that way. You should have a lot of faith in yourself that you can do it. I think what worked best for me is knowing I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, next month, next year, but I know that I will try so hard to figure it out. And I will lean on other people. If I can't figure it out, I'll ask other people to help me and for their advice. So failure is not only necessary, but it's going to become your best teacher. And I know that's easier said than done. So I'm going to give you a little story. I had an event where no one bought tickets. Like, I don't think one person bought a ticket for this specific event that I was throwing. And I was devastated. I had events before in the past. They did really well. This event, I'm like, it was crickets. And I'm like, what's what's going on? And of course, at first I was very hard on myself. But I had to really kind of ask myself, what could I have done different? What do I think went wrong? Was it price too high? Was the date bad? Are people just not interested in this kind of thing? So instead of being so hard on myself and being like, you know what, I'm never throwing this kind of event again. I tweaked it. And before I tweaked it, I asked my team, hey, do you guys think this was price too high? I asked them that. And I also was like, Do you guys see anything that I didn't see? Get their feedback and also ask people you really trust and who are rooting you on, maybe some of their feedback as well. Of course, use your own gut. You know, don't listen to everyone. And I will say that if you're going to ask someone for advice, make sure it's someone that you would kind of consider like an ideal client. Like, I'm not going to go ask my father, who is in his upper 60s, about what I should have done differently for this beauty event because he's not my audience. Instead, I asked to some of my friends, I'm like, I want your honest feedback. Was this too expensive? And some of them said, a little. So what I did is I changed up the structure of what this event was. I lowered the price. And instead of it being an event where you buy your individual ticket, it was like host your own private event. And what I found was it was a lot easier to do that. People were more interested. They wanted to go to this event, but they wanted to go with just their friends. And I understand that. So I think if I never launched it in the first place, I wouldn't have known that. Or if I just completely gave up, I also wouldn't have known that people are interested in it, but it just had to be changed. It was something I invested some money into. So of course, you're kind of hard on yourself of like, should I not have done that? But you have to pivot. And I think learning how to pivot and using failure as like the indicator that it's time to pivot is so important. So we changed up the structure. We started doing these private events. They worked well. You know, we made some money. But I think ultimately what was wrong was that it wasn't really my purpose. It didn't really fit in line with like what I wanted to do with my business. Also, I was realizing that some of these events, yes, they're very profitable, but they were taking up so much time to plan, to coordinate, to go back and forth. And there's just so many steps of that. So I ended up pivoting and just completely dropped it all together. And I think when I first started, if I knew that I was going to drop it all together, I'd be like, oh, like that's a failure. But in reality, it was such a smart decision because you don't know until you try something. And then if you have the ability to use that as fuel to not either you're gonna tweak it or make it better, or maybe you're like, this just like isn't in alignment with what I'm supposed to be doing, or it's like taking up too many resources, like time. So, what is kind of hard about owning a business is that you make all of the decisions. There's no one there to tell you yes or no besides the data. And then you know you can get feedback from people, of course. So I had to like really, really trust myself that I was making the right decision. And it was great because we completely dropped it. And I was able to focus on so many other things that helped grow the business in the direction that I want to be in. And I would also say that some of the best things that we added to our business or the best things that we launched came from something not working in the first place. And I was just, I think we kind of talked about it on my podcast episode when I was speaking with Lauren that if I never failed at anything, I would just be a spray tan studio with two different tans. And because things didn't go well, or you know, I needed to pivot when things weren't working the way I wanted them to, it helped us grow into like a way bigger business than I thought it ever was going to be. And now I know and have total faith in myself that when I fail, it's just redirection. It's telling me something, it's feedback, it's a very important information. So I just think failure is so important. And it's something I hated so much and like could not even sit with the idea and the feelings of failure. And now it's become one of my favorite things. And it is such a mindset shift, but also it has just made me feel much better that, like, yeah, I'm gonna fail sometimes. Of course, do your research, really think things through, but also try it. Try it, know that just get it going and you can refine it as you go along. Something because I didn't want to fail, I dealt a lot with analysis paralysis. I was overthinking everything because I was thinking about how it could go wrong in 20 million different ways, instead of just trying it and seeing how I could make it go right in so many other ways. So if you're listening to this and you have dealt with the same thing, just know that you are totally not alone. Learning how to fail is such an important entrepreneurship skill. And there's just so many business books that I have read that kind of are saying the same thing. The people I admire most in business admit that they failed a million times. So just know that because you fail doing something, it is not a bad thing. So, anyways, I hope this helped somebody or helped encourage you. If you need feedback, like I said, ask the people around you, ask your customers. They will be honest with you. And you're gonna get the best kind of feedback because those are the people that hear you, see you, and want to show up to your business. So thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

That's your quick hit of clarity and momentum for the week. If it sparks something, share it with a friend or tag us in your stories at Business Over Cocktails and or at Lauren Major. We love seeing what resonates. Don't forget, Mondays are for full-length episodes with rich conversations, and Fridays are the Business Chaser episodes. These are bite sized insights pulled from our guests to keep you inspired and aligned throughout the week. Do you have a question or takeaway? DM us at Business Silver Cocktails. We just might feature it in a future episode. Cheers!