Ep 149. Brian Scudamore: How to Fail Successfully

Brian Scudamore is the Founder and CEO of O2E Brands—a company with four successful home service brands under that banner, including 1-800-Got-Junk?; WOW 1 Day Painting; You Move Me; and Shack Shine.  He’s the author of WTF (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success. Brian learned the ins and outs of business by running his own.  He has learned that creating the right culture at work, valuing your employees, and treating your customers well is critical to achieving business results; a great idea is not enough.

Stew and Brian talk about the value of having a vision, a painted picture of the future; about Brian’s successes and his failures; and about the lessons he’s learned on the importance of people at work and, most of all, on how crucial it is to learn from one’s experiences -- especially failures -- by actively, intentionally reflecting on what happened and why it happened as it did.  The not-so-secret ingredient in Brian’s philosophy is just that: learning doesn’t happen by magic, it occurs as a result of taking the time to look back and discover insights you can use in the future. Brian shares some compelling, instructive examples of how he’s done this in his life, starting when he was a child, and how the willingness to fail -- the very celebration of failure -- is part of his approach not only to leading his businesses but also to parenting his three children.