Wedding Business Solutions

Make a résumé of your failures!

• Alan Berg, CSP, FPSA, Global Speaking Fellow

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Make a résumé of your failures!

Have you ever thought about listing out your business failures? What would it look like if you embraced your mistakes instead of hiding them? Would sharing your stumbles actually help you and your team grow? In this episode I explore why acknowledging what hasn't worked is more liberating than embarrassing and how learning from failed attempts can lead to better ideas, stronger teams, and bigger wins in your wedding business.

Listen to this new 7-minute episode for a fresh perspective on turning failure into opportunity and how being open about your missteps could build a stronger business culture.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks. 

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site: 

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com 

Should you make a resume of your failures? Listen to this episode and see where this one's going.

Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast.

I was just listening to a book and heard about this idea of making a resume of your failures. It was interesting because the person who did this thought the feedback they were going to get would be embarrassment, but instead it was actually liberating. People felt more willing to talk about their failures with them.

I've spoken about this on another episode—failure is just part of the process. If you're not trying new things, if you're just staying in your safe zone, then sure, you're not going to fail, but you're also not going to get anywhere because you're not trying anything new. How can you get different results than you're getting now if you don't try anything different?

I haven't done this yet. I just heard about it today while I was driving and listening to this book. Making a resume of your failures? That could be a many, many, many-page resume for me.

If I started thinking about all the failures, I'd realize that each one was simply a step along the way. It was, "Hey, let's try this."

I just made new promo pieces for Ask Alan Anything. I thought the old ones were good. Then I put them side by side and thought, "Wow." In just a few months, this new version is so much better. At the time, I thought the original was good, and the people who saw it thought it was good too. But when I show them side by side, I bet they'll react the same way I did.

The new version is cleaner. It expresses the objective better. It shows people how to use it, how real people are using it, and it talks about the problem it solves instead of focusing on the technology.

So now I have a whole bunch of old pieces that are going into the recycling bin.

That's something I've done ever since I left The Knot in 2011. I try not to print too much of anything because I know there's going to be a better idea. I just didn't realize it would happen this quickly.

I don't wait until I run out of something. When I come up with a better idea, that's when I print the new version. That's when it's time to show the new idea—not after I've handed out every last postcard.

If the new idea is better, it's called sunk cost. I already paid for the old ones. That's done. I'll put them in the recycling bin. They're not going in the garbage—they'll become paper again somewhere else.

I don't wait to run out before improving. I improve, then I act on it immediately.

Was the earlier piece a failure? Looking at them side by side, I think, "I probably could have done better."

I can think about a direct mail piece I did recently with one of my clients. I thought it was great. They thought it was great. It got minimal results. Another printed piece also got minimal results.

Move on.

Don't cry in your soup. Move on.

You can't change what happened. You can only move forward, try something different, and see what happens.

Are they failures? From the standpoint of not getting the return on investment, yes. Are they failures in life or business? No. They're just part of the process.

I did another podcast called "What's the Worst That Can Happen?" I should probably do that one again.

If the worst that can happen is that it costs me some time and money, I can live with that. Everybody's still here, healthy, and living their lives.

I can live with losing some time and money.

But I also think about all the times I tried something new and it worked. Maybe it made more money. Maybe it didn't create more time—you can't get more time—but maybe it saved you time because of a new technology or a better process.

That's a win too.

Making a resume of your failures—actually listing them out—I realize there are so many things I've tried over the years that didn't work.

I'd like to say only professionally, but probably personally as well.

Sometimes we do something with good intentions and it backfires because we didn't really think it through. That happens.

Personally or professionally, make a list of your failures.

I don't know if I'm going to do this, but I'm wondering if any of you will. If you do, please reach out and let me know what you think about it.

Then the question becomes: Is it just for you, or are you going to share it?

The person in the audiobook shared it. They actually put it out there for their colleagues.

If you're a leader, a boss, an owner, or a manager, showing that kind of vulnerability—showing you're not perfect—doesn't burst the bubble for other people. It tells them it's okay if we stumble. It's okay to make mistakes.

I was also listening to a story about Facebook.

They had an intern who was trying to understand some bugs in the system. The intern intentionally tried to trigger one of those failures—and succeeded.

Unfortunately, it took all of Facebook down for 30 minutes.

Can you imagine the scrambling that must have been going on?

Instead of firing the person, they decided it was actually a good idea to stress-test the system by intentionally trying to cause problems so they could fix them before customers experienced them. They just agreed not to take the whole site down next time.

I think they even named the process after the intern—something like "Brandonizing," if I remember correctly.

Not as a criticism, but as recognition. The attitude became, "We should do more of that. We should stress-test things so we find the problems before our customers do."

Again, that was a failure.

Sure, having all of Facebook down for 30 minutes is a big failure.

But it wasn't the end of the world, and it led to better processes afterward.

So if any of you decide to make a resume of your failures, I'd love to hear about it.

You don't have to share it with me—or with anyone else—if you don't want to. But I think the process itself would be valuable.

I don't really have the time to sit down and do it right now because it would take a long, long time.

So thanks for listening, and thanks to that book for the idea.


I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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©2026 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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