We had our second module online with our Business Developer Master Class. In a breakout room, we kept our stories very open and transparent. One topic we discussed was related to failure: “How much can you accept failure?”

To be honest, I used to be afraid of failure my whole life, both personally and professionally. Because of this fear, I was afraid of making mistakes and overly worried in unknown situations.

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The question brought me back to a few months ago when I was solo traveling in Lagos, Portugal. In our hostel, we stayed on the garden, and there was a graffiti artist playing guitar, a Scottish palm reader who made popcorn for us, a hiker from the U.S., a lady, a German student, then me. We were gathered for a “mission” – playing music together. I chose an egg shaker, a simple hand percussion instrument, but it was my first time using it. I must admit to myself and everyone that I don’t have a good sense of music and don’t know many songs.

Everyone encouraged me to try, to just shake the egg anytime with any rhythm I felt. Sadly, I held the egg with fear, and in the end, I didn’t make any movement with my hand. I couldn’t find the moment to join in with the song he played. I was sweating inside for the whole song, feeling like it was the longest song ever. I felt frozen and numb, and my eyes occasionally looked around, seeing their encouraging looks telling me I could just try. It was a very awkward moment for me.

In the end, the Scottish man asked me if I was afraid people would judge me if I didn’t play the egg shaker well. To be honest, I didn’t know the real reason but just answered, “Maybe? And it’s how I was taught and grew up.” What he mentioned related to my feelings but not entirely. I was also afraid that if I jumped in at the wrong moment, I would ruin the whole song they were playing, and it would be my mistake. Usually, if I decided to do anything, I had to be 100% confident. I couldn’t proceed with insecurity.

In my very typical Asian family, you need to perform the best, not only your best but the best among others. Then, you also better not make any mistakes, or people around you shouldn’t make mistakes because later, you may be requested to say sorry for something that even is not your fault.

I remember one story that happened to both my brother and me. We had a fight with a kid at school. My father asked my brother to go to that kid’s house to apologize, even though the kid was the one who started the fight. My brother only defended himself. The same thing happened to me; a girl started a fight with me, and bullying was very common in my area. You often went to school with your head down, keeping your eyes down and going to class as quickly as possible to avoid the bullies who would say to your face, “What the f**k are you looking at?”, just to start a fight with you.

After the fight, I “won” even though she was a martial arts student. I had had enough of this kind of bullying. I am not proud of this victory, but she later came to my house and escalated the issue to my parents. My mom cried a lot because, to her, it was a disaster. I was a very good academic student at school, always at the top, and she couldn’t understand how I could behave this way. Of course, she asked me to say sorry. I stood in front of them and told the girl that she started the fight, and we had agreed to a one-on-one fight. Why was she here seeking an apology? It didn’t sound like the spirit of martial arts. My face looked firm, but my heart was beating like a drum. Long story short, we ended with a handshake and no apology is neccessary, but I did say sorry to my parents for disappointing them.

I was afraid of a lot of things if they related to disappointing my parents. I remember being selected for different merit classes in various subjects, math, and writing, but I never brought any prizes back after the competitions. I always went to these competitions with a huge fear of failure. During the tests, more than half of the time, I thought about the disappointment of my failure would bring to my school, teachers, and parents. I was never mentally prepared for failure, which is why I never performed well in such competitions.

Even though I haven’t been to school for almost 10 years, a few times per year, I still dream of going to school with the wrong books for the wrong subjects. This was a nightmare for us because you can get a zero score for that and a very bad record while you were aiming for the top student position. Some of my friends have similar dreams even now, and so does my mom. We all experienced similar things. We shouldn’t blame the parents. It has been a repeated cycle. It didn’t start with you. We need to decide to break that cycle for ourselves and our future kids.

There are still a lot of things I need to do in my personal life to step out of this cycle completely, learn to accept mistakes and failure, then understand that it is a life lesson everyone needs to go through.

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At least, in a fortunate way, my professional life has changed and improved a lot. That’s where I learned that failure is accepted, and we can make mistakes, if we do not repeat them.

Working in the scope of sourcing new suppliers, there are a lot of fun and but also challenges, but I love that mixture. Sometimes, I am afraid the suppliers I find won’t perform well or things will end badly. I worry about things that haven’t even started. God blesses! My manager encourages me even if it doesn’t result as we want, we still learn something from that failure, don’t we? We learn that we can do better and differently next time. Thats how failure is accepted.

It’s hard sometimes to say sorry—sorry for making the mistake, sorry for letting other people wait so long, sorry for not keeping promises, sorry for unclear communication, sorry for the wrong attitude. Once, I deeply apologized to a person and his team because I raised my voice during a meeting. Later, he also apologized for his low performance at work. After that situation, I think we both managed our tempers better. Thats how mistake is accepted.

One quote that I like the most from Ingvar Kamprad is, “Only while sleeping one makes no mistakes.” I have given a lot of magnets with this quote to my colleagues and kept one for myself. Then, I received a pin with the same quote from my BD Master Class as well. What a coincidence! I later gave the pin to a new friend I met during traveling in Copenhagen, hoping more and more people can live with this spirit. And of course, we still make mistakes unconsciously while sleeping.

There are a lot of mistakes that can be made during our work, and our life. However, I am lucky enough to hear people around saying, “Dare to make mistakes.” It doesn’t encourage you to make mistakes but raise your awareness of having a right to make mistakes. Mistake is acceptable. Failure is acceptable; first, you need to accept that yourself.

Of course, just do not repeat the same mistakes and failures :”)