My Biggest Failure...s

Hey, difference makers here. Cheers. Ready? All right, Bunny Young back for another. Difference makers live and talking about failure, which not super comfortable for a whole lot of people, but I am one of those experts at failing at things. Failing a lot. And behind me, I have the VP of GGYSD which, in case you haven't been following, is the vice president of getting shit done. Getting your shit done, which is my shit, so. Or shoot stuff that's also an S. Getting your stuff done. Rewind record again. It's getting your stuff done. And she's awesome, but she also helps me from a lot of failures. And we're finishing this month off by talking about one of my biggest failures. And I can tell you that we sat here for a couple minutes just discussing which one of my failures would be the most epic. And I'm gonna be real with you and share a couple. But I think, honestly, if you want to talk about the biggest failure, it is definitely giving up on myself at any point. I know that's not as funny as you may have wanted it to be or as epic as you may have hoped that it would have been, but I think giving up on myself and just feeling like I am a failure or feeling like I can't do it is the biggest failure. And I've had moments in my life where I've given up on myself and it's almost destroyed my marriage. I've had moments in my life where I've given up on myself and it's almost destroyed companies. And you just. You can't do that. No matter what happens and how badly you want to crawl into that cave and just eat Nutella with a spoon and not come out. It's okay to do for a little while. But don't give up on yourself because you're here for a reason. And that definitely is to save the world, especially if you're a difference maker. So that was, like, my top level being real, my biggest failure and realization there. I've had a couple other huge failures, but are you gonna share what your biggest failure is? Before we go into this?

I definitely draw some parallels on giving up on myself. But I remember, I don't know if it's really a failure, but it's definitely, like, a failure moment that, you know, I was like, I don't know why I'm in college. I don't know what I'm doing. Like, what I felt like. I was definitely pressured into it. And then I was like, I'm just, you know, I'm gonna give up. I'm gonna run away. I'm gonna join the Coast Guard. I don't know if I've ever told you the story. And so I'm sitting here thinking about it. I'm like, victoria, they don't want you because you a. You have scoliosis. But, like, you can't really swim.

So do you have to swim in the Coast Guard?

I think if you're rescuing people, it probably helps.

I'm army, so.

But no, definitely in business as well. I mean, there was a time where I put Shout out on the shelf for years because I didn't feel like I was doing enough for people. And, like, you know, I look at all of these other people that are in marketing. Wow, they are just, like, light years ahead of me. So, like, what am I offering? And I had to, like, come to that realization and take a few years and kind of rebuild and 2.0.

Yeah, I'm glad you did. So I can tell you, I've got a couple failures I'm gonna share with you. One of them is, we have a failure as a service dog. Her name is Gracie, and Goose was getting older. Goose was, like, 6 years old, and we got Gracie as a puppy. And here I am running Pawsable. Actually, I don't think Pawsible was a thing yet, but I. I'm a speaker. I have all this service dog knowledge. I am, like, the service animal champion, and I have a service animal that is just not cutting it. And I trained her for, like, 14 months, and it was just like, I can do this. And the bottom line was it wasn't a failure. She just doesn't want to do it. She. She didn't want to be a public service animal. She stays at home with my mom now. My mom adopted her, and she's an amazing service animal for my mom, and she's dedicated and uses all of the things that she learned training with me to help my mom, but she just. She didn't like airplanes. She didn't like being on stage and, like, being in crowded rooms. Like, I don't really like any of those things, but I don't try to bite people. For the most part, I caught myself. For the most part. I don't try to bite people when I'm in those kinds of settings. And. And it was really just a matter of me having to let go of wanting to succeed so badly that I ended up, you know, pushing this amazing being into a zone that was not her zone of genius. So. And I can tell you, I definitely. I did that with. With balance, like, I wanted balance to be this thing so badly that I ignored all warning signs to the contrary of, you know, putting myself in situations and in relationships and partnerships that like, clearly were not within my core values. But then even that, which I'm not gonna say that's my biggest failure, but it's probably up there at its most recent. Not most recent. I think my most recent failure was for getting pants on Thursday. That's alright, though. Like, we don't need pants. But it's as far as that failure. It's one that I've been very open about, that I have zero hard feelings over all of the things that transpired because that failure led to a business that's now thriving and it's serving people in a way that I could never have done. You know, the woman who owns it, her decorating skills and her heart and her compassion and her ideas are just like off the charts. And so here's something that I feel like I failed at. But honestly, the best thing I could do to pull myself out of that failure was hand it to somebody that's so, like, well equipped to be able to do this. And yeah, so I definitely think that is. I think I was talking to somebody last night that there are times I feel like a complete and total failure as a parent because there's no manual as like a wife, because there's no manual. And I'm not sure how to make this person happy 100% of the time. And you know what the reality is. And like, you're about to get into this. I told you not to get married, but you're gonna do this anyway. And I'm going to your wedding, so just don't have that part that says, does anybody object? Because I have a list, no object.

And nobody saying obey anything, because I don't like that word.

But when you get into, like when you get into a relationship, that's that level of commitment, like marriage, and you're trying to figure out how to make this other person happy. Like, it's not your job to make that person happy.

Yeah, we definitely went through that phase. And doing it across countries is.

It's hard.

And you know, you think that you're putting all of this effort in and then you're like, no, but I'm doing this, but I'm making you happy. But it's like, I'm not listening to you, I'm not understanding, I'm not being receptive. And I'm really good at sweeping things under the rug. Yeah.

So I'm gonna say Biggest failure is for sure not taking care of yourself. And biggest failure is definitely like, ignoring all of the signs that are pointing you towards, like, you're headed to an epic failure until eventually, ready, you hit the wall and it's game over. You see how I led into that? That was good, right?

I liked that.

We're just gonna keep making these. Not me, but we're gonna keep making these Bitmojis if you're enjoying them, because I'm enjoying using them. So, as always in the comments, want to know your biggest failures? Not in a way to laugh at you or call you out, but in a way that hopefully, you know, I'm here, big V's here to support you, and you're not alone. Your failures are lessons.

Yeah, it's okay to fail. I mean, I think that's one thing that gets swept under the rug all the time is like, you have to be okay with failure in order to be successful. I mean, I've fallen my face on a regular basis, both, you know, literally and in many other aspects. But, you know, you just have to pick up and move on. Like the whole planoline picture debacle. Yeah, like, you know, it's just like, yeah, it sucks to fail, but it's like, okay, I learned move on.

If I didn't ever have a failure, like, I wouldn't. Well, first off, you wouldn't know social media. I wouldn't be a coach, like, if I didn't know how to fail. It's not like I stepped foot on a softball field and was like, God's gift to softball, kind of. But like, no, I was like this giant gangly thing that had no coordination. I still have no coordination, but I had somebody there with more experience than I did who probably failed more times than I did to help me be a better player. And, you know, that's. That's kind of what we do in business is whether it's a coach, whether it is a VP of gysd. You surround yourself with people that can help you and encourage you to get through the failures and get to the other side and to make the world a better place. So coming up in March, we've got a bunch of videos on videos. So that'll be cool. Be like Googling Google. So if you're watching this live, look forward to that. If you're not watching this live, just make sure that you are going to Facebook. And it's ABP Difference Makers. It's a private little group for all of the difference makers that are here. Hey, starfish. Hey, difference makers. And also on Instagram, it's a better place consulting or Unny has six legs. If you just want to follow me by myself and you're creepy like that, then I have no judgment because I make a fool of myself all the time on Instagram and on LinkedIn. So thank you guys for being here. Thank you for making the world a better place. V, thank you as always, for joining me.

Thanks for having me.