Significant Career Lesson From an Owner and CEO at Cleantech Inc.
For Sean, the importance of failure is paramount to success, and to be a successful entrepreneur, one must relish failure, iterating and learning from mistakes without repeating them. Moreover, the company owner emphasizes the importance of surrounding oneself with ambitious, successful people who push one to improve, cautioning against those who "suck the life out of you" and offer no value.
Entrepreneurship, Risk-Taking, Learning from Failure, Surrounding Yourself with Talent, Personal Growth
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Sean Meer
Owner, CEO
Cleantech Inc.
Arizona State University (ASU) - W. P. Carey
Finance
Consulting & Related Professional Services, Real Estate
Sales and Client Management
Scholarship Recipient, Greek Life Member, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. Embrace Failure: The importance of failing, being excited to fail, and relishing failure is crucial for entrepreneurs. Analyze failures, mitigate mistakes, and iterate to improve processes.
2. Take Risks: Don't be afraid to pursue your ideas, even if they seem stupid. Be willing to go all in and try multiple iterations, as taking risks is essential for building a viable business.
3. Surround Yourself with the Right People: Seek out individuals who are better than you and push you to improve. Avoid those who drain your energy and offer no value. Be the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Transcript
What is one lesson you have learned that has proven to be successful in your career?
A lesson is the importance of failure. I'm going to talk about this over and over again. There's nothing more important than failing and being excited to fail, relishing it, and wanting to fail all the time.
However, you don't want to make the same failure twice, because then you'd be considered insane. You can have different types of failure, but if you keep doing the same thing without tweaking anything, it's just a carbon copy of failure and would be miserable.
But if you take risks and believe you have good ideas, it's so sad. Everyone has had a million good business ideas. Perhaps only 1% or 5% of people actually take the risk and go all in on an idea.
They'll do it, try multiple iterations, analyze failures and mistakes, and mitigate them moving forward to build a better machine. Eventually, you'll reach the limit of how refined your process can be. That's where you'll find out if you have a viable business model.
The desire to fail is huge for being an entrepreneur. If you don't like failure and are scared of it, don't try to run a company. You'll be miserable, hate it, and be terrible at it. You have to like to fail.
This is a learned behavior, not a magical gift. You have to learn to be comfortable with it. Surround yourself with people who are better than you.
I don't believe everyone is the same. There are billions of people who are much better than me. I try to spend my time with those who make my life better and push me to be better.
I've also had friends with a lot of room for improvement. They might encourage you to drink all the time or do nothing. They'll suck the life out of you and add no value. You need to avoid that.
Go out and take risks. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. Be around people doing cool things, and then you'll do cool things. Be the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If your friends aren't doing anything and don't want to get better, and you do, you need to cut them out of your life.