The key to remembering the past is not to keep carrying over lessons of just what went wrong in the past and then vowing to never repeat the same mistake or worse yet take risks.

The real value of remembering the past is to use your success to springboard you and bolster your confidence so you’re ready and willing to take on the next business opportunity and MAKE it work out. Yes, you have more power to make any risk you take work if you are willing to take on the accountability, the flexibility and the selective memory that gives you confidence to be aggressive and to act with speed and courage.

The goal is to do your research ahead of time, explore what the worst case scenario could be, weigh the upside potential and then act based upon a trust from successes in the past and move quickly.

Know that you can make it work, and know when and how to exit. I like to say that the time to look for the fire exit is when you enter the room…not when you need to find the exit when there’s an emergency.

That’s right. I’m the guy you see on the airplane actually reading the safety card!

I’m cautious but not fearful. I’ve got a depth of experience from having a selective memory that is more attuned to when I took a risk and it worked out. And I take comfort in knowing that I do my homework first and trust that I’ll make lemons into lemonade.

There are three ways of learning when it comes to business:

1. Do something, learn something and make money and that feels great.
2. Do something, learn something and break even and that’s okay.
3. Do something, learn something and lose money and that stinks with one big bonus….this is when I’ll learn my biggest lessons.

The funny thing is, the times I lost money made me sit down and revisit what went right, what went wrong and what would I do differently the next time.

The reality is I’ve learned many valuable lessons from when things didn’t work out!

The temporary failures ultimately cleared the way for me to make my biggest strides in life and career. The reason is I learned to take these setbacks as a learning experience rather than berating myself for being a failure, or worse yet, using it as an excuse to get overly cautious and stuck.

Remembering the past and not dwelling on it is where you, too, will create the proper launching pad for the big successes that await you.