Secret Diary of a Mumpreneur: Learning to celebrate the ‘Oops’

Meriel Kehoe - 30 Nov 18

We all get taught to behave in a certain way at work don’t we?  Cover up or underplay the failures, celebrate the successes and never, ever admit weakness.  The thing is, this doesn’t sit well with me.  For one, I have honesty tourettes and simply cannot stop myself admitting if I’ve stuffed up.  Secondly, and maybe more importantly, I believe that celebrating the ‘oops’ not only helps me to grow but encourages the people around me to see that it’s not failure that’s the baddy in life but the ‘not trying at all.’

For years I thought I might be a bit on my own with this point of view, but just recently someone recommended a video by Spanx Ceo Sara Blakely offering advice on how to redefine failure.  The very same clever-lady-who-has-worked-multiple-miracles-on-my-Mum-gut, no less! She recommends that you raise a glass to your failure of the week and celebrate it.  Write it down and ask yourself ‘in this pile of proverbial do-do what have I learnt?’ Inevitably they’ll be at least one thing that propels you on to greater things.

The list of ‘oops’ in our business is long and illustrious. From the large; ‘Oops’ we haven’t trademarked our name properly and now we need to rebrand, or ‘Oops I appear to have launched a business that I know barely anything about’, all the way through to ‘Oops, I’m in jeans and everyone else is in a suit’ or ‘Oops, I didn’t realise people in the food industry don’t seem to approve of swearing.’ Even though re-living this list of ‘oops’ makes me break out in a bit of a sweat, what I know now is I won’t repeat those mistakes again (well, apart from the swearing perhaps!).  I’ve also learnt that the occasional, or even frequent ‘oops’ doesn’t mean you can’t be successful.

So, to all the small business owners who have put fear of failure to one side to get a business off the ground, I raise my glass. To all those who are thinking of having a go, tomorrow is small Business Saturday – what better time to dust off that idea you’ve been running around your head for months and start working on it? To borrow a cliché, Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Meriel Kehoe

I’m a mumpreneur and Mum to seven year old Finlay, trying (but not always succeeding) to do both those jobs well. I’m a ninja of the juggle, nailing loads of washing on conference calls and silencing my son by conjuring a well-timed snack whilst simultaneously bashing a keyboard. My brand has grown from the kitchen table to supermarket shelf and my boy has grown from 50cm to well over a metre. I can’t take all the credit for those two things but I can try and enjoy the ride even if I sometimes drop the ball. When I’m not out and about being mumpreneurial, I can mostly be found in my spare room in ‘activewear’. Very occasionally I am actually active in it too.

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