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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2013-12-30
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU1DI8HsYAg
very nice to be here I'll start with a story I grew up in a small town in New Jersey it was exactly two blocks wide in one mile long and we had the biggest family in town when mother took her six girls and put them in the girls room painted pink of course and then she put her for boys in the boy's room painted it blue
and my parents produce everyone of those children from the living room couch that was between the two bedrooms lesson and that by the way and not on failure I first discovered of the word failure in the classroom I can distinctly remember being class not being able to read or write until I was in third grade or thereabouts when I started getting the hang of it and
being ashamed of myself but I was kind of okay with it I was sent back to the second grade classroom one day after school and I knew the moment I walked in that I was in trouble there was sister celery saying issues in on from hell does also Ellen Maloney that all the kids at school called the retarded girl and there was really Valentino not the
famous guy but really Valentino the Italian kid that just came off the boat as we said and I was estableciendo insisted celery told me if I didn't learn to pay attention I would always be stupid that was the day I first discovered that I had a label and it was about failure my idea of hell to this day is being asked to read out loud to
have the shame that you feel reading out loud and in a situation where I was education whole system judges a child's intelligence simply based on how well they could read or write to certain abilities %HESITATION I learned how to be a loser and I couldn't wait to get out of that jail house that everybody loved at school I couldn't wait the day I got out of
it and so when I grew up iced continue to learn a lot about failure but frankly I realize that that was the best calling card for the rest of my life because nothing was going to feel as bad as after me ever again all of my singular phenomenal successes that help me build my business happened on the heels of failure I didn't choose it that way
but somehow it always work that way when Ramon Simone was my first love and business partner left to marry my secretary I thought I would never walk again because I was madly in love with him and he had found me at the diner and taking me out of my home town and he gave me the thousand dollars to start my business and so when he left
me I really felt like nothing and when I finally built the courage to leave that business partnership two years later which was two years too long on the way out the door he said to me you know you'll never succeed without me and I felt my heart through every bone in my body that I would rather die than let him see me not succeed and it
was that insult which really became my insurance policy to continue in business matter what was happening because I didn't want to set let that guy see me fail when I was asked to give my first speech to a group of three hundred city bankers I was honored but as everybody is scared to death when I got up there at the podium even though I had practiced
every day for three and a half months I memorize it knew everything about it I got up there and as many people now I learned I lost my voice and when the moderator for the second time said thank you and asked me to sit down I felt such a public shame I swore I would never speak again but the following Monday I realized I had to
get over myself and so I volunteered to teach how to sell real estate the only subject I knew at the learning annex which is part of NY you at that time and I talked for twelve weeks and as luck would have it as I always found recovering from a failure the very first night in class a short Asian woman walks up to me and she says
Bob why you know much money you make one yeah I'm I'm not a mac and was do you know how much money I make and she proceeded to tell me she made two hundred fifty thousand dollars in six months my best sales person I had seven of them at the time was making forty two thousand she made two hundred fifty in six months I had walked
in and discover the orient express the woman who would become the number one salesperson all of New York for the next twenty five years and be at the head of the whole way of the Asian population moving into New York I would have never met Terry cheering at that class if I hadn't gotten over myself I have found the failure and innovation are kissing cousins you
get one you work on one you automatically get the other and I was able to make the corporate group the innovator in my industry because we were so good at failure I decided when I had my first year where had a profit many years into the business I had a great idea and I was going to do it and I knew it was the greatest thing
and the great thing was I was going to take all of our apartments and put them on videotape and now customers ramp to look at apartments all have to do is pop in a video tape and they could pick out a partner from the lazy boy chair all it was a great idea well one month later I'm standing the basement of one of my shop sums
on right next is a bars it's still there in a wet basement seventy seven thousand dollars of money I blew stupidly on tapes nobody wanted and they want them because I put myself people's faces and phone numbers on the net in one hand to the customer and the call the next sales person so that idea was dead on arrival and as I was starting to cry
in my soup my husband bill Higgins who was a navy captain came home from the war exercise in South Korea where he was blowing up the north Koreans is what boys do on weekends that would pay a higher tax money and he was all excited telling me all my cock it was amazing and I know you do it every year what's the big deal and he
said this time we did it in real time on this new thing called the internet and so I took all my videos I shove them on the internet I put them online idea what online meant then and boom boom within the first week I had to sales and London so I immediately registered everyone of my competitors U. R. L. so that they would have to call
me and ask for the U. R. L. as they discovered the thing that was about to change the real estate industry as we know it then and can you imagine the advantage I had having a two year heads up and a head start on all of my competitors course around and discover what I could do online I would have never discovered online if I hadn't failed
with the seventy seven thousand dollars and that was my reward I've learned some tricks about building a culture of innovation and then not very sophisticated but I share them with you my first is that I made a habit of rewarding efforts more than results and so each of my offices had a good idea box a big bright yellow box with the slot on the top is
always made for Chow and children up children salespeople excusing were expected to put their ideas in a box I can tell you when I open those boxes every Monday morning at the sales meeting most of the ideas were terrible but I gave out a dollar for the good ideas and a dollar for the band ideas and by doing that the message was just keep the ideas
coming I made a habit of making up public spectacle of anything that I felt that I remember I had tried to be a host of a new reality TV show years back before it became the big thing and I thought I'm the most qualified person to do it and I tried I addition I worked at it and they gave it to a young neophytes sales person
only work for me for a month she was twenty one twenty two maybe and drop dead gorgeous I hater I was mortified more than anything else that she was going to be the host and everybody knew how hard I had worked so I decided to make her the hero told the story about how she beat the old boss out of the whole gig and how she
was amazing and let's get rid cheers and by making a public spectacle of myself I gave people permission to fill publicly I always gave my sales people my sales manager a budget to make mistakes sounds like a simple thing but it worked like a dream and I copied what my mother does my father he worked two jobs his whole life to support us but when he
came home he handed my mother his paycheck and she always handed him twenty dollar bill she called it dad's mad money he was allowed to take the twenty Bucks into everyone until the next twenty came seven days later and you know what we learned from my father he was so happy to have that twenty and so I dedicated five percent of all operating budgets at every
office I ever open as mad money fun money and what their job was to spend it to spend before the year ended so that they could discover new things and everybody spent that five percent and with that five percent we discovered so many new things I would have never happened if it wasn't pre funded I've learned about people who know how to fail because I wasn't
a failure business appearing real estate it's a business of rejection allowed nose and very few yeses and I made a study my whole life trying to figure out why I had certain sales people earn three or four million dollars a year selling apartments and then I had someone on average making sixty five thousand dollars what's the difference I studied and studied and this is what I
found it was never the contacts I came in to the business with which is what the a common culture believed the sat evened out after the first year it was never how hard they work to some of my worst sales people work the hardest the only difference between the people that were usually successful in those that were not where they took less time feeling sorry for
them they almost had a lower IQ so that if you smack them and hit them down they popped back up and said I'm so stupid hit me again and you know what I learn has a higher to lead a good team I look for that characteristic in everyone I hired because you could take a hit and keep calm come back at you always at the finish
line and that was a singular difference between my superstars and everybody else when the stock market crash in Taiwan I forget what year was I saw it on the eleven o'clock news and what do you think I thought of Carrie Chiang Mai number one sales person Oliver business came out of Taiwan and so I called her could recheck pulled through the day colder systems colder cellphones
I thought you commit Harry Carey for sure but at six o'clock no this is like what twenty hours later she rumbles into my office is very put together a long hair was a mess from the Scarrow smear like somebody had Peter up and what do you think she said bubble up Haig's lasted I up all night I get a hundred sixty eight new listings what did
she do should talk everyone she ever sold a listen to the sky is falling you losing your money better sell now and then she media we went out and she hired to Japanese speaking assistance and solos units to the Japanese that was starting to move into new city poetry in motion on failure carry Chang no surprise a today she out how to how much money each
make lashing out things happen which means she calls me every January and says you know how much money I make but now she says I made more money than you know she's right she may lashes six million eight hundred some odd thousand to the penny she tells me a day how should do it I can tell you how she does it she is great at failure
shouldn't have the failure bombing a body shows you know it exists I remember I got a call from mark Burnett productions even felt familiar to me and I don't watch TV among who looked a lot but I realize he's the biggest Hollywood producer and his office was asking me if I would consider being on this new TV show called shark tank I heard what the show
is about us and it's perfect for me send me the contract I never read the contract didn't know what I was getting paid I signed the contract expressed it right back and you want to lose that spot to anyone else I was so thrilled I ran right out to burgle sport three autograph signing outfits I was guna Hollywood does croon so happy and then only a
week before I was going a five days before I go I got another call from his assistant who says I'm so sorry Mrs corporate we've changed our mind we hired another woman I couldn't believe it but I was already in the habit of failing and so I sat down and find out the best email I think I have a rope my life I'll read it up
the unit you deem mark I understand you ask another girl to dance instead of me although I appreciate being reserved as a fall back how insulting will users of fall back I'm much more accustomed to coming in first but I consider your rejection a lucky charm is everything good my life happen on the heels of rejection I cited of course is to Stella Marie said I'd
be stupid Ramon Simone said I'd never succeed without him he was wrong Donald Trump said I never see a penny of this four million dollar commission and I had to sue him in state court to collect and I got the commission and then I went on to say I think you should consider inviting both women have to compete for the seat and that's exactly what he
did in my one that seat now today I am invests in twenty four or twenty jul twenty four it was get mixed up businesses on shark tank working with those entrepreneurs everyday in helping people's dreams come true what would have happened if I hadn't stood up and wrote that email and not accepted the rejection I would have had the job number one I would have known
these people and or those lives would have been changed how important it was and I sat I also learned after I was on the set for almost two months that they had rejected three times more people have all signed contracts only pick twenty five percent and my producer said no wrote a letter no incentive email no one objected couldn't they be in those seats today probably
but I'm so thankful I wrote my email I've learned to think a failure after everything I've done in life as a lucky charm as a little like a like a heads up little bright light because you know what I have never had it where I haven't seen that the flip side of that is always the biggest opportunity it just happened that way for me my whole