The MapleMoney Show » How to Make Money » Career

How to Turn Failure into Success, with Erin Diehl

Presented by Retire Happy

Welcome to The MapleMoney Show, the podcast that helps Canadians improve their finances to create lasting financial freedom. I’m your host, Tom Drake, the founder of MapleMoney, where I’ve been writing about all things related to personal finance since 2009.

Do you consider yourself a perfectionist? Do you struggle to accept failure? Too often, our fear of failure holds us back. My guest this week explains that we should not only embrace failure, we should also celebrate it.

Erin “Big” Diehl is a Business Improv Edutainer, Failfluencer, and Professional Zoombie. Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn, play, and grow.

Erin explains why she views failure as a positive. This led to a discussion about perfectionism. I asked Erin what was so bad about being a perfectionist. Her response was that it is stifling. It stifles your own creativity and the creativity of others if you’re working as a team.

Erin goes on to talk about the importance of being vulnerable. It’s tough to be vulnerable when your striving for perfectionism, and are afraid to fail. When it boils down, Erin says that the more you allow yourself to move on from a mistake, the more successful you will be.

She reminds us that there are many successful people who have failed time and time again. It’s the ones who don’t give up when they fail who eventually succeed. So, how do you embrace failure if you’ve established a lifelong pattern of perfectionism? According to Erin, it starts with the word, “Marinate.” To find out more, you need to listen to the full interview!

This episode of The MapleMoney Show is brought to you by Retire Happy. Retire Happy has been providing top-quality information and resources on retirement, investing, and estate planning for over 20 years and was named the best personal finance blog by The Globe and Mail.

The Retire Happy VIP Members Library includes subscriber-only downloads, including an Annual Financial Checkup and checklists to help you with everything from reviewing your portfolio, to what you need to know about your duties as an executor. Become a Retire Happy VIP, by signing up for free today.

Episode Summary

  • Why Erin views failure as a positive
  • What’s wrong with perfectionism?
  • Vulnerability allows us to connect with people on a deeper level
  • How to stop being a perfectionist
  • The more you allow yourself to move on, the more successful you will be
  • Erin shares ways in which her company evolved as a result of the pandemic
  • In every failure, there will be parts that you’re never going to be ok with
  • There are so many stories of successful people who failed time and time again
  • Too many of us give up after our first failure

If there’s a pattern that’s not serving you and you don’t correct it, it will manifest into something else…you cannot be your best self personally or professionally without recognizing the things that aren’t serving you anymore. - Erin Diehl Click to Tweet

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