Change Your Perspective On Failure With This Week's #KajabiHero

What is your relationship with failure?

Do you see it as defeat or a stepping stone to something greater?

For a lot of us, failure is the absolute worst thing that can happen as a business owner. But what if you saw things differently? Is it possible for failure to actually get you closer to success?

Our newest Kajabi Hero, Kyle Buchanan created a whiteboard animation video to promote his book on Amazon. But this video that he spent so much time and effort to create didn't sell a single copy of his book.

That may sound like a complete fail, but Kyle saw it as an opportunity.

His failed book promotion evolved into something bigger than he ever imagined it could be.

And if it wasn't for that “failure,” chances are, he wouldn’t be a Kajabi Hero today.

How A Failed Book Promotion Started Kyle's Journey to Kajabi Hero

In Australia, Kyle was a student for 30 years. And despite having four university degrees, he still considers himself an average student. He found it frustrating that he could blurt out a bunch of information for exams, but nothing that he studied really stuck.

When he started a career in the financial market, he started playing around with memorization techniques. Learn more to earn more, right?

After developing his skills in memorization, he wrote a book on Amazon about how to memorize the Periodic Table. It sold, but he wanted to take it to the next level. He created a promo video for his book using whiteboard animation.

It was a great idea, but in reality, the video didn't help him sell a single copy of his book.

Most people would have stopped right there, wrote it off as a failure, and pursued another way to market their book. But despite its failure at selling his book something interesting happened with this promo video.

People started responding to his whiteboard animation video. Views and interaction kept building momentum, and this failure of a book promo sparked another idea in Kyle's mind.

What if he turned his book into a course and used whiteboard animation videos to deliver the content?

Instead of sulking over his failure, Kyle decided to look at it from a different angle. That new perspective created a completely new business idea. It shifted his business so radically that he loves creating courses more than he ever did writing his book.

He’s not even worried about selling his book anymore. As a matter of fact, he's jacked up the price of his book because he would rather people buy his course than the book.

And this whole business started with a failed book promotion.

Kyle snowballed his courses straight to the top because he chose to look at his failure differently.

Now, Kyle has more courses on different subjects, and three more courses planned for this year. He loves how Kajabi allows him to focus his efforts on creating and selling his content. And he’s leveraging that freedom to the fullest.

So what can you learn from his story?

Kyle delivered a ton of insight and advice in his interview, so if you haven't already go ahead and listen to it.

Today, I'll cover some of the biggest points he touched on and how you can look at failure from a different perspective too.

Is it Possible for Failure to be The Beginning of Your Success Story?

 
No one goes into life thinking: Man, I'm going to start a business online, and I'm going to fail! It'll be awesome!

 If you're like most people, failure is the absolute worst thing that can happen to your business. And that's totally understandable. Failure isn't fun. It can be tough, humiliating, and when you have big dreams, failure makes those dreams seem impossible.

The truth is though, 99% of the time if you see someone who has started a successful business, there was at least one failure in their past that they had to overcome.

Failure sucks.

It can be painful, and it can knock you down. But what you do after you’re down there can make the difference between never living your dreams and making your dreams a reality.

What if you looked at failure from a different angle?

Let me illustrate what I'm talking about with a story I recently stumbled across. (You can find the original story here.)

A businesswoman rushed down the sidewalk to meet with a client.

When she turned around a corner, she realized a cyclist was headed straight for her!

This guy was booking it, and she only had two options:

Get out of the way or get run over.

She dived into the bushes, and the guy sped off like it didn’t matter that he almost hurt this woman.

She dragged herself out of the bushes and dusted herself off cursing the jerk who could’ve seriously hurt her.

Her outfit was a mess, she broke a heel on an expensive pair of shoes, and the guy didn't even say he was sorry.

She had to meet with her client looking like a wreck, and it was all because some jerk almost run her over with his bicycle.

Do you think that attitude set her up for a successful meeting?

Is it even possible to put a positive angle on that situation?

What if things went a little differently? Same circumstances, same situation, but with a different perspective and attitude.

A woman, dressed in her best outfit and expensive shoes, rushed to meet with a client. She turned the corner, and coming straight toward her was a man on a bicycle... And he showed no signs of slowing down.

In a split decision, she dove into the bushes, narrowly escaping serious injury.

When she picked herself back up, she dusted off her clothes and looked around.

I sure hope someone saw that because those moves were worthy of ninja status!

Her impressive reflexes kicked in just in time.

When she noticed that she broke a heel, she snapped the other heel off and put the shoes on her feet.

It's a good thing I invested in some expensive shoes.. they look killer even without the heels!

Not only did she avoid getting run over by a bicycle, now she had an exciting story to tell her client!

How do you think that meeting went?

In both examples, an inconsiderate cyclist almost ran her over without a second thought or an apology. But her perspective changed the event entirely and altered the attitude she had when meeting with an important client.

Kyle could have walked away with his tail between his legs because this video that he put so much time and effort into didn't sell a single copy of his book.

But instead of looking at things negatively, he shifted his perspective and, out of his failure, saw a brand new business opportunity ripe for the picking.

What has walking around with your head down sulking over your failures done for you so far?

What opportunities could you be missing out on right now because you choose to focus on pain and aggravation instead of looking for the positive side of your situation?

Failure can be a valuable tool for your business if you're willing to shift your perspective.

Do Something With the Tools You Have in Your Life

If you don't like your life, you have full power and control to drastically change that. Are you willing to get off your butt and make things happen?

If you don't think you have anything to offer the world, maybe you're looking at your life through the wrong lens.

What tools available to you, maybe even right in front of your face, have you not leveraged yet? What is possible if you recognize those tools and use them to create a business?

Talents

There's nothing wrong about being modest or humble. But sometimes we use those words when the truth is we’re really unconfident and insecure. Some people use modesty and humility as an excuse to not take their gifts and do something with them.

Some people are afraid their gifts and talents aren’t good enough.

Give yourself credit for the things that you're good at. If you're one of those people who reject compliments and put yourself down, what do you have to gain from that?

How could things change if you started owning your gifts and talents to utilize them in your business?

Your Perspective

No two people look at the world the same way.  

You may not see your perspective as a business tool, but to someone else, your perspective can be highly valuable.

Maybe you've been through some tough times. If you created a course about how you got through it, your perspective could help other people get through a tough time too.

People can benefit from your perspective.

Opportunities

There have never been more opportunities to create your own business than there is today. With a laptop and an internet connection, it’s possible to build your own empire.

And if you can recognize opportunities, even in your worst moments when you could consider yourself a failure, you can build a business with staying power.

When you know how to use opportunity as a tool to grow your business, you'll only attract more opportunities.

So how do you move forward from here?

In the interview, Kyle shared some great tips on how to get started. I'll expand on those tips here so you can start your own journey.

Kyle's Tips to Start Your Own Business Today

YouTube is Kyle's biggest source of traffic.

If you love creating videos and that's how you connect with people the best, have you ever considered using YouTube to start a business?

Start creating videos and share your passion with people. After you gain some traction there, you can use Kyle's simple method to start creating and selling digital products.

Step 1: Give away something for free.

Freemium, lead magnet, email op-tin, whatever you want to call it; start out by giving something valuable to people for free before you ever start trying to sell something.

Kyle's favorite way to do this is creating a short and sweet evergreen course. He's done this with all of his paid courses with great results.

Even if you don't have a premium course built yet, setting up a free course is a great way to build your list, generate interest in your topic, and validate your ideas with very little risk.

If no one wants to give you their email address for a free course, then you haven't really lost anything. Don't see that as a failure, see it as an opportunity to try something else out.

Step 2: Upgrade your free course with a paid one.

Once you’ve built your list to a couple of hundred people, you can take it to the next level.

Turn your freebie into a premium course.

If your free course was highly valuable to your subscribers, they would be excited to invest in themselves by purchasing your course.

Kyle has set up every single one of his courses this way. It may sound ridiculously simple but it works, and Kyle is proof of that.

You Can Start Your Own Successful Business Right Here, Right Now

We've been doing this long enough to know that anyone can become a Kajabi Hero.

But you won’t accomplish anything if you’re only taking in all of these stories and information without putting them into action.

Starting your own business can be scary, challenging, and stretch you more than you ever thought you could be stretched. But when you are trying to create something special it’s more than worth it.

Every single one of our Kajabi Heroes followed a similar process to this:

Take action. Be patient. Be consistent.

And through that process, they built momentum and created successful businesses. On top of that, they are helping countless people all over the world with their knowledge.

Do you believe the same thing can happen for you?

I do.

You may be reading Kyle’s story thinking; there is no way I could do something like that!

Would you be willing to get a new perspective? Are you willing to take action and explore what’s possible?

You have an opportunity today. You can try Kajabi out for yourself, completely free, for 14 days. Think about what could be possible if you jumped at this opportunity.

If you want to be a Kajabi Hero, the next 14-days could be the start of something huge.

And if you want to learn more about Kyle and his courses check out Memorize Academy here. 

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