True accountability extends beyond your own direct mistakes. Even when someone else is the cause of a problem, hold yourself responsible for having put yourself in that situation. This mindset empowers you to learn from the experience and avoid similar issues in the future by analyzing your choices.

Common advice says to “look in the mirror” after a loss. This is flawed because the mirror only reflects the surface, allowing for self-deception. True winning and losing force you to confront the unseen internal landscape: your real desires, ego, fears, and limitations.

Even a top-tier sales professional has a career pitch win rate of just 50-60%. Success isn't about an unbeatable record, but a relentless focus on analyzing failures. Remembering and learning from every lost deal is more critical for long-term improvement than celebrating wins.

Success requires resilience, which is built by experiencing and recovering from small failures. Engaging in activities with public stakes, like sports or public speaking, teaches you to handle losses, bounce back quickly, and develop the mental fortitude needed for high-stakes endeavors.

Successful people don't have perfect days. The real metric for progress is your 'bounce back rate'—the speed at which you recover and get back on track after a failure or misstep. Focus on resilience over flawlessness.

Beyond simple resilience, "post-traumatic growth" is the scientifically-backed idea that all humans can use adversity to build a psychological immune system. Overcoming challenges creates a memory of capability, making you better equipped to handle future adversity, from losing a deal to losing a job.

Steve Garrity identifies his emotional breakdown in a hospital parking garage as his "rock bottom." Crucially, he sees this moment as a necessary catharsis that allowed him to move forward. This perspective reframes the lowest point of a crisis not as a failure, but as a critical turning point that provides the foundation for recovery and growth.

Entrepreneurs often view early mistakes as regrettable detours to be avoided. The proper framing is to see them as necessary, unskippable steps in development. Every fumble, pivot, and moment of uncertainty is essential preparation for what's next, transforming regret into an appreciation for the journey itself.

Intuition is not a mystical gut feeling but rapid pattern recognition based on experience. Since leaders cannot "watch game tape," they must build this mental library by systematically discussing failures and setbacks. This process of embedding learnings sharpens their ability to recognize patterns in future situations.