Jasmine Ashton-Leigh, CEO of Abundant Health and Energy Pty Ltd
If you want to successfully attract right-fit clients, consider dropping the constant desire to be positive.
“Constant positivity and an unwillingness to deal with mistakes, problems, and failure often come from a protection mechanism in the mind to avoid fear,” says Jasmine Ashton-Leigh, CEO of a global coaching company based in Australia.
Trust me, fear never sleeps.
While I advocate that a key to authority marketing is being positive and talking about what you want and not about what you don’t want, I was intrigued by this contrarian view of tackling the negative head-on that Ashton-Leigh shared with me in a recent Zoom interview.
Ashton-Leigh is a true underdog story. Born dead with a lung disease, she was quite literally reborn into a world of hardship. She was raised by a single mom. Outside of the home, Ashton-Leigh experienced mental, physical, and sexual abuse, and as a result, developed severe depression and anxiety.
Rather than succumbing to her pain and suffering, she invested in the world’s best coaches, courses, and training all over the globe. She studied the most advanced tools and techniques on the planet, based on neuroscience, human psychology, and human behavior, and learned how to create lasting inner transformation to change her life for the better.
As founder and CEO of Abundant Health and Energy Pty Ltd, she is helping women globally to heal from the past, overcome fear, and become unstoppable to create more success in career, relationships and health.
In my research, I find you can’t cheap your way to the top. True authorities invest in coaching and education. Authorities I have studied like Warren Buffett are huge proponents of investing in knowledge. Ancient wisdom encourages us to “know thyself” first.
Ashton-Leigh says, “The mind is designed to keep you safe and avoid pain; it is not designed to create success. It will limit your success if you avoid facing these underlying forces within yourself, your business, and your relationships.”
Here are her five tips to create unstoppable success by embracing failure:
Avoid perfectionism. She says, “Many believe that one’s success is directly correlated to their ability to perform perfectly. They believe that being perfect and influencing others to do the same will create more success. But avoiding failure inhibits business growth because you’re not building the muscles of courage, resilience, persistence, and commitment—required skills for long-term success. Like building physical muscle, you lose it if you don’t use it.”
Cut to the chase and speak truth. “Truth inspires, builds trust, and creates opportunities for growth,” she says. “Courageously share your own stories of failure and triumph to inspire others. A good leader leads by example, and there’s a flow-on effect through others. When you communicate your triumph through failures, you uplift and inspire others to face their fears, take courageous action, and never give up. It also helps to build genuine relationships—an essential enabler of business success.”
Embrace failure with a solution-oriented mindset. “Successful people all have one thing in common: failure. Success requires risk, commitment, and resilience through many failures. If you want your team to be innovative, this will not be possible in an environment where failure is condemned. Most people have been conditioned to believe it’s bad to fail. This mindset inevitably creates fear and chokes business growth. Failure creates new opportunities for growth, innovation, and success because it provides insight into what’s not working. This means you can change your approach and act on the best path forward.”
Have a champion in your corner. “To fast-track your way to new expertise and insight, have the right guidance, including leveraging mentors and coaches to teach you and your team how to embrace failure. This way, you can achieve your goals and become unstoppable.”
Redefine failure. “Failure does not mean you’ve failed. It simply means a certain result was not produced in a certain time frame. Instead of saying, ‘I failed’ or ‘I’m a failure,’ which triggers negative emotions and the belief that success is impossible, say, ‘I haven’t yet found a way to produce the result.’ Setbacks are a part of life; without them, there wouldn’t be opportunities for growth and expansion. It’s how you respond that ultimately defines your success.”
Bottom line: Breaking through your own limitations is no small feat. “Failure is a part of life; the more we can embrace challenges and failures, the more we are forced to face our fears, resulting in the opportunity for growth, expansion, and success,” says Ashton-Leigh.
