Practice self awareness — Practice being cognizant of what role you played in the failure, sometimes things are out of your control, but many times they’re not. In the case of MTV I didn’t pay close attention to the guidelines or read the handbook thoroughly enough. Recognizing my part in it brought me to a place where I had the self awareness to evaluate my actions and ask myself how I can avoid a recurrence of this mishap, so I can be more successful in the future.
The Fear of Failure is one of the most common restraints that holds people back from pursuing great ideas. Imagine if we could become totally free from the fear of failure. Imagine what we could then manifest and create. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about “Becoming Free From the Fear of Failure.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Beth Nydick.
Beth Nydick is a former TV producer and New Jersey-based publicity and business strategist who develops entrepreneurs and media personalities, to go from “Undiscovered’’ to Unforgettable”. Beth’s 20+ years of media experience and her own TV cocktail segments, make her the perfect professional to take your business to the next level.
With a roster of celebrity and rising entrepreneur clients, she knows what it means to truly be ready for the spotlight. As a result of working with Beth, her clients confidently appear on TV & Media with a solid business foundation while using media and strategy to scale their business. She has been featured in OPRAH, Parade, Forbes, Inc., Nylon Magazine, Tori Burch, and Better Homes and Gardens. She has also appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, The Chew, and The Tonight Show.
Beth is also the co-author of the top-rated cookbook Clean Cocktails: Righteous Recipes for the Modern Mixologist. She lives in New Jersey with her two boys, two Pit Bulls, and hubby of 22 years, where she takes advantage of local fruit to make her favourite strawberry Margarita. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, clubhouse & LinkedIn @bethnydick, and check out her website www.bethnydick.com to download the Media Spotlight Magazine.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
My journey starts with television. I have always been an avid TV watcher and really love the business of television. Even as a young girl I was interested in the Nielsen ratings and intrigued by those that appeared on and worked in television. My first job in the industry was an internship at the Tonight Show in Los Angeles. From that I created my 20 year media journey working in movies, production, and on set. And now I support entrepreneurs and business owners to not only be featured on television, but to run their businesses in a way that monetizes their appearances.
I am also a nutritionist, and with my unique background in media, I understood that visibility was an important part of the business. I was able to lean into my media skills to make appearances on the Dr. Oz Show, The Chew, and other programming which led to the opportunity to create my clean cocktail cookbook. The cookbook was an idea I had had for a while, I found an amazing partner to co-author it, and it became a huge success. My media experience played a large part in that success, it gave me the knowledge that products are all fueled by the companies that are selling them. We were able to strategically position the cookbook utilizing that knowledge. So we made cocktails for the publishers, right there at their conference room tables. I knew that they had to experience having the cocktail so that they could be in the reader’s seat when they thought about selling the book. And as a result we did really well with our cookbook, Clean Cocktails: Righteous Recipes for the Modern Mixologist. It was featured in multiple publications including Oprah, Better Homes and Gardens, Tory Burch, Forbes, and Inc. We were on all of the platforms that I now put my clients on regularly, and I utilize that as social proof for the methods that I teach my clients today.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
I would probably say the inception of my cookbook is one of my most interesting stories. My husband and I were hosting a Cinco de Mayo party. I had made three different drinks, cocktails that I had made my entire life. I was standing in my living room and everyone at my party was raving about them, they could not believe they didn’t contain any sugar. It was then that I realized I had to write a book about my clean cocktails! I knew myself well enough to know that I needed a partner, it was not something I wanted to create on my own. I remember several Starbucks meetings with different people where I would explain my idea and ask what they thought of it. Every single person said, “that’s amazing I would love to be a part of it!” But none of them ever followed up. That was my rule, I wanted somebody that was going to follow up because I didn’t want to have to drive the entire project–I wanted a true partner. I met my eventual coauthor, Tara Roscioli, at an event. We had lunch in her office, I proposed my book idea, and she said yes! And THEN she followed up and wanted to know about next steps. I immediately felt a kinship.
Tara and I worked really well as a team, the book came together very quickly and we were quite successful. What I had to understand was what my limitations were, what I needed to be fulfilled, and by whom to actually have this project work. I’m sure that everybody reading this has started projects and not finished them. Having a partner that has just as much buy in as you do, where it is truly a 50/50 partnership, is key. We each knew what our strengths were and they complemented each other. One of the best things about Tara is that she has the same openness to possibility that I do, which is why our partnership was so successful. So my takeaway is that you’ve got to know yourself, understand what you need, and find someone to partner with that matches your energy, determination, and commitment.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I feel that the traits most instrumental to my success are persistence, commitment, and perseverance. I am extremely persistent. My clients often ask me, “so when should I stop following up?” My answer is, when you hear a definitive NO. Why would you stop following up otherwise? Why wouldn’t you persist until somebody tells you no? And even at that point, especially in the world of media, it still may not be over. You don’t always need a resounding yes to push forward in pursuit of your dream.
As far as commitment goes, every morning before I even get out of bed, I commit to being brave. Before I open my eyes I say, “ok Beth, today you’re gonna be brave.” I might be brave all day long, but sometimes I’m only going to be brave until 11:00 a.m. It’s important to understand who you are and how you operate best, versus how other people think things need to be done. As your business grows and gets bigger the failures will get scarier. Don’t get stuck, be brave and make that commitment to figure out how to work through it. And that is where perseverance comes in, you must keep going and keep doing what you do when you face rejection. When you are a business owner, failure is necessary because it keeps you growing. Entrepreneurship is actually personal development disguised by business.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the concept of becoming free from failure. Let’s zoom in a bit. From your experience, why exactly are people so afraid of failure? Why is failure so frightening to us?
I think failure is so frightening to so many because from an early age we are taught that failure is bad, instead of looking at it as a growth opportunity. I believe that’s where it comes from. If you get an F, if you fail, you did something wrong. Instead of exploring the possibility that you didn’t absorb the information well enough or that you may have a learning disability or something to that extent. I think that changing the connotation around failure is actually how we are going to “fail up.” It’s really something that I take to heart. When I hit send on a pitch or email, I’m not afraid of failing or looking bad. I always tell myself that, regardless of the outcome, I’m adding value to somebody else’s life. As long as I’m adding value, I’m not failing.
What are the downsides of being afraid of failure? How can it limit people?
Being afraid to fail has limitless downsides. If you are too afraid of failure you can end up being paralyzed by it. Unable to move forward, it creates a barrier to you stepping into your full potential. I often talk about creating your own opportunities for success, when you have no space to create those opportunities it limits your success. Then when you fail it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, when you allow that space to happen you can just step into it. Failure is actually kind of warm and cozy, we often get reassurances when we fail, “Oh honey it’s OK, you’ll do better next time.” When you are doing well people generally ignore it, expect more, or resent you. So there’s not an equal response to failure and success. People want to break you down when you’re successful and coddle you when you fail. You have to find a happy-medium, the people holding you up, to create your opportunities.
In contrast, can you help articulate a few ways how becoming free from failure can help improve our lives?
If you are not worried about the outcome, for example, if you are pitching or sending a proposal email and you’re not worried about them saying no then it’s easier to hit send. It’s easier to create a proposal, an email, or any other content in a free way when you release those negative thoughts. If you’re too worried about how your content is going to be received, then that will seep into everything you compose, and what we do is all about content. They say dogs can smell fear, so can your clients. My sales calls go well because I have confidence, even in my failures. The fear of failure does not create any space for success.
We would love to hear your story about your experience dealing with failure. Would you be able to share a story about that with us?
I got fired from MTV. My first job in New York was at MTV, in special services. I had shared an email about saving Sesame Street with a friend of mine at work. This went against their email guidelines at that time and I was terminated, no questions asked. I didn’t know what to do with it, this was a pivotal point in my life. After I stopped beating myself up for the mistake that I had made, I had to then create what I wanted to do next–how to get my next job in media and take the next step. Growing up I was always an overachiever and had not experienced a lot of failure, so when I got fired it shook me to the core. I was bewildered because what I had done seemed so insignificant, I sent an email that was a violation of company policy and didn’t anticipate the extreme ramifications.
How did you rebound and recover after that? What did you learn from this whole episode? What advice would you give to others based on that story?
One of the things I really gleaned from that experience was understanding that my role in a company is bigger than just my job, how everything I do affects the business. It was a growing up moment, and the only time I’ve ever been fired from a job. I cried for a while and then I reevaluated how I wanted to show up in the media space. The one thing I knew was that I didn’t want to sit behind a desk anymore. I wanted to be in the field with a camera, to create art through film, and tell stories. It allowed me the opportunity to challenge myself and figure out what I was really passionate about.
The next couple of jobs I had were on sets and working with cameramen. It opened me up to a broader range of experiences and made me more well-rounded. Now I actually do better with producers and on set because I understand how everything works. At the time I really had to go inside myself to see who I still was and what I wanted to do. I found that media was still my passion, regardless of this one bad experience. My advice to others is not to allow one failure to color all the experiences that follow.
Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that everyone can take to become free from the fear of failure”? Please share a story or an example for each.
In my opinion, here are five steps that everyone can take to become free from the fear of failure.
1. Practice self awareness
Practice being cognizant of what role you played in the failure, sometimes things are out of your control, but many times they’re not. In the case of MTV I didn’t pay close attention to the guidelines or read the handbook thoroughly enough. Recognizing my part in it brought me to a place where I had the self awareness to evaluate my actions and ask myself how I can avoid a recurrence of this mishap, so I can be more successful in the future.
2. Let yourself mourn
Let yourself wallow in it for a bit. It’s okay to be sad and to beat yourself up, but you have to give yourself a timeline. I’m gonna beat myself up for three more days and then after three days I’m going to give myself a break. We tend to shy away from that piece of sorrow, but if you don’t actually sit with the failure you experience you are not going to learn from it and be able to move forward.
3. Acknowledge it
Back when I was terminated from MTV it was taboo to openly discuss this type of failure, but nowadays it’s something that you can talk about to your friends or a coach. You can have an open and honest conversation about what happened, what you’ve learned from it, and how you are going to move through it so it doesn’t happen again.
4. Persevere
You need to get up, dust yourself off, and move on to the next opportunity. Once you’re done mourning, get around that failure whatever it may be, the project that didn’t work, the job you didn’t get, or the media spot that didn’t happen. Moving on to the next thing is actually the hardest part. Awareness, sadness and acknowledgement are all internal, but having to go back out into the world and make things happen is so difficult after a failure. I could have easily gone back and worked for my family. I could’ve decided to do something else, to leave the media. It would have been a lot easier, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to persevere.
5. Persist
After MTV I signed up with a couple of placement firms. I probably had thirty interviews and came up second place each time. I could have internalized that, but I had to acknowledge that it wasn’t about me, either somebody had a different skill set, more experience, or the job just wasn’t the right fit for me. I eventually got a job at an ad agency working on commercials and I loved it. The flexibility was amazing and I was back in the studio again. If I had not kept going and pushing myself to continue towards my goal of working in television, who knows where I would be today.
All the jobs, experiences, and failures have gotten me to this place. It’s always hard for us to acknowledge all the successes along the way because we are so focused on the failure. But all my failures got me to this point and that’s where acknowledgment and self-awareness comes back in. I have to acknowledge what I’ve done to get here and have the self-awareness to use all the knowledge I have gained along the way to move through it and find more success. That’s where I want to be, and that’s how we can combat the fear of failure in order to get there.
The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.” Based on your experience, have you found this quote to be true? What do you think Aristotle really meant?
I don’t think there is only one way to be successful, but I do believe there is one way to understand success for yourself. I think in entrepreneurship there are often systematic steps that are touted to make us successful, “Learn this formula to build your fortune!”, “Follow these steps to six-figure success!” These methods may work for some, but there is not a one-size-fits-all pathway to success, you simply have to feel successful in your heart. You can get that big job or land that huge client and you can still feel like a failure. So I believe that is actually what Aristotle’s quote means, success only happens in one way and it’s the way that you can acknowledge it for yourself.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Be brave. I talk about it all the time. There is an old exercise called seven layers deep, the first question is, “why do you want to be successful?” For me that comes down to being seen and heard. I am a middle child and I have a big personality. I think you must understand who you are at your core, be brave enough to be yourself, and be able to show that to the world. Create the space to allow yourself to say, “hey, I’m not brave today, but I’m going to encourage myself to be brave.” That’s a movement I can get behind.
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂
Hands down it would be Meaghan Murphy, editor of Good Housekeeping and Women’s Day. I just think the world of her. She had such a tragic experience, her best friend died in a car crash with her when she was a teenager, and she shared that story in an essay in Cosmo which paved the way to her first job. That formed her trajectory, I believe that traumatic things that happen early on in life are what fuel you later on in life. I admire how she is so creative and shows up unapologetically as herself. Megan is super successful without having it all perfectly together, that’s really inspiring to me. She has this way about her, she is always with these amazing powerhouses and still stays true to her persona. She has the ability to understand who she is in a place where she can be anybody, and she still chooses to be herself, which is incredibly impressive and endearing.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can find me on all the social media platforms at Beth Nydick or go to bethnydick.com where you can find my Get Media Now magazine, 10 pages with articles to get you and your business ready for media!
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.