I feel like over the past few months, I have been asking myself what the meaning of certain words are to me? What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? What does success really mean to me? What does being an entrepreneur mean to me, as a person, and my values? As a digital marketing and media agency what kinds of clients should we represent and, how can we as an agency do our best work?

Definition of failure
In that search I feel like everyday I meet someone that teaches me something new that moves my definition of these words forward just a little bit. Recently I attended an event in Brisbane by a really cool performance coach called Per Bristow. Per and me have become friends over the last few weeks and I’m so grateful to have gone and attended his event. The statement that got me the most was, “Successful people invest in failure.” And then I starting thinking about the real definition of failure?

I feel like we get into doing things only if we are absolutely guaranteed success. And while that might not be a bad way to hedge your bets and reduce risks, I feel like you only know what you are truly capable of when you are put in a position where your back is against the wall. When you have to dig deep into your soul and work out a way out of the predicament you’re in, even if initially you think that there is no way. I feel not only do you learn from that, you grow from that experience. And isn’t it our jobs as entrepreneurs to put ourselves in situations where we learn?

The idea of failing and its definition should be be challenged. What does failing really mean to you? To fail is when a certain way of doing things doesn’t work according to initially planned. Which means that there are other ways to explore before you achieve success. Glen Carlson says something that has stuck with me for the last 3 years, “Discomfort precedes victory.”

Discomfort precedes victory
We don’t like the discomfort that comes with not knowing how to solve a particular problem. In fact we avoid it. That’s what procrastination is. We don’t like the idea that we could have exerted effort into doing something and that something threw back at us what we did not expect.

If being an entrepreneur was easy, everyone would do it. And, if you are an MLM marketer, a business owner, a franchisee, I don’t believe in my opinion you classify as an entrepreneur. My definition of an entrepreneur is one, that solves meaningful problems in the world through new ways of thinking. By moving the ideas and the values of their industry forward. By challenging current beliefs and traditional ways of doing things to come up with new and innovative ways of achieving results for the people that they are trying to serve.

We are the agency for industry disrupters
Entrepreneurship is about serving. About caring. About effecting change. About making a small difference that in time could turn into a movement. The idea about being an entrepreneur is to fail, to try new things, to get frustrated and arrive at a learning that just blows your mind. I love this video by John Oliver …

I need permission to fail and so do other entrepreneurs. That is why at Amplify, our clients are the ones that are making change and solving meaningful problems. We are the agency that market the cool companies that are effectively changing the landscape of their industries, and we are proud to be part of their journeys. Most importantly, we are proud to have them as part of ours.