3 Key Reflections Zuhairah Scott Washington Shares About Changing the Narrative Around Failing
Zuhairah Scott Washington is a global business leader and entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in operations, business development, customer experience and more. She is also a digitalundivided program alumni who decided to leap into unchartered territory to launch, craft and design the mobile app, Kahnoodle in 2013. During the undivided We Rise Virtual Summit, Zuhairah spoke to the challenges she faced while in the process and season of launching her new app. Zuhairah highlighted and talked through three key reflections centered around the concept of failing up as an entrepreneur during a rich discussion led by digitalundivided CEO, Lauren Maillian.
As humans, we don’t think of all the things failure has to offer. When we decide to come against our impulsive reactions by taking a step back to assess the bigger picture and vision of what the purpose of failure is, we put on a new suit of armor that typically encourages us to push forward. Zuhairah provided viewers with the perfect demonstration of what it’s take to redefine failure and use it for your benefit. Here’s what you need in order to fail up and continue to build traction in your journey as an entrepreneur:
- Allow failed experiences to speak to your capabilities.
After a lack of funding, Zuhairah decided to unclench from the idea of having a relationship-based app and company. She decided to let go of Kahnoodle some time after its launch. After the failure of her company, she felt the feelings and emotions that came with things not working out, but she did not sit in that season of failure forever. Instead, Zuhairah decided to push forward with navigating through the world of being an entrepreneur and created new lanes for herself. Her advice? Change the narrative around failure by allowing failure to speak to your capabilities. What was most important about that season in Zuhairah’s journey was that she put her best foot forward by launching a new company and giving it her best shot. She was able to “position failure as an asset and strength” in her next roles by discussing what the process of launching a company and experiencing failure felt like for her. This humanized her business and entrepreneurial journey as she began stepping into new roles and positions. This goes to show that positioning failure as an asset and strength works wonders for re-establishing yourself in another space that may be meant for you.
- Own failure. Wear it like the clothes in your closet.
Here’s what you can’t do as an entrepreneur and business woman: you cannot allow failure to get the best of you. Meaning you can’t adhere to failure by believing the work you’ve put out went to waste or that you are terrible at what we do. When you’re in a season of decline, the best thing Zuhairah encourages viewers and women in business to do is to own failure. You own failure by being vulnerable and talking about it. You own failure by leaning into your experience and understanding through insight and social support. Lastly, you own failure by choosing to push forward and by knowing that you are not alone. You are surrounded.
- Fail up by not feeling shame.
A lot of us make mistakes in business or fail at some endeavors and that is okay. Sadly, it is human nature to give more attention to our shortcomings and what we have lost. It’s easy for failure to reign over our emotions and result in some negative reactions and feelings. Feeling shame is something that comes up for a lot of us. Zuhairah discussed how important it is to overcome shame as an entrepreneur and business woman. Choosing not to feel shame means that you are choosing to overcome what comes with that feeling, which are typically circumstances like isolation, sadness, depression, and withdrawal. Your value, your work, and your presence is needed in the world and overcoming shame is one of the habits needed in order to make it in the entrepreneurial and business world.
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