Celebrating Failure, Together

1.  What have I failed in during this past semester?  More like what haven't I failed in, hahahahaha!...  So many failures.  For instance, When the ticket clerk at Regal told me to enjoy the movie, I said "you too!", and then I ran inside and I'm never going back there again.  Those are my kind of failures, but for this assignment, I guess I'll talk about my classic one, "I still haven't studied for this exam."  I am currently taking Cultural Anthropology, which is actually a bit harder than it sounds.  The teacher is a grad student, and we all know how grad students seem to want to put us through hell, especially when it comes to exams.  We have had three exams so far, and after scoring a not-so-great grade on the first one, I looked myself in the mirror and said "you're studying for the next exam."  Next exam comes around and I'm cramming in all of my studying the night before.  Poor grade on the test again, I look myself in the mirror, "you're studying for this next exam."  Next exam comes, cramming in all studying the night before, get an "eh" grade on the test, go home, look myself in the mirror, "studying for next exam", ect.  The next exam coming up is going to be our final, yayyy! But this time, I am determined to study more than one night in advanced.  So please help me out by keeping me in check.

2.  What have I learned from this?  Well I have learned that I suck at studying and I excel at procrastinating (at least for studying).  But the moral lesson that I have gained from this is those who do well, are those who have prepared themselves for the situation at hand.  And this lesson is not just for succeeding on exams my friends, no there is a bigger life lesson here that we can all learn from.  Work hard, be diligent, accept the fact that you will need to sacrifice time doing something else that you'd probably rather be doing, but in the end, it is those who put in the extra effort and time who reap the bigger reward.

3.  Being in the Innovation Academy, I have already heard all of this "failure is not just something to expect, but something to aim for!" stuff.  And I have to say I don't entirely agree with that statement.  I know that this statement is not as extreme as the one in this assignment, it's more of the Innovation Academy's perspective.  Failure is definitely not something to aim for, you want to aim for success, but you should be prepared to fail.  Prepare yourself for failure, be ready to accept the criticisms and make sure you are open and willing to learn from your failures.  Failures are not a bad thing at all, they are a learning experience, and sometimes it can actually be more beneficial to fail a couple times before succeeding because you could probably learn a little more than what you bargained for.  Failure is a good thing to experience, but again, it should not be a goal to go into a situation and purposefully set yourself up for failure.  I hope I didn't sound too contradicting there.

I'm gone (My Exit Strategy)

I honestly did not have an exit strategy in mind when thinking of my business, I wasn't completely aware that I needed one either.  However, thinking of it now, I could have a few possible exit strategies that I would take.

My preferred route would be to stay with Comfort Food Inc. from anywhere between 8-10 years, before moving on to go full force on my actual dream business which is an athletic training business for prospective and professional athletes.  However, I would try my best to keep the business in the family or give it to a close friend.  I know that is wishful thinking, but if I actually try to do it, then I'm going to do it.  Yes, Comfort Food Inc. would be my baby and it would be extremely hard to bring myself to leave it to someone else, but it is not my dream company.



On the other hand, I know myself as a person, and I am super nostalgic.  For this reason, I would not be surprised if I decided to stay with Comfort Food Inc. until I retire.  I can see myself doing this, and in turn, I would most definitely keep this business in the family.  In the end, it is not about the money for me, it is about enjoying what I am doing.  That being said, if I see that this restaurant is making a difference in people's lives, and people seriously enjoy eating at my restaurant, then I would be perfectly happy staying there.  And who is to say that I can't start my athletic training business while doing this too?

If I do decide to stay with Comfort Food Inc., then I will plan on expanding to other locations, and adding in a health and fitness department as well.  I would probably still try to do this even if I was only planning on staying with the business for 10 years, but I would put more effort into doing it if I knew that I would be staying with the company for the rest of my working life.