Failures are your stepping stones, says Thorne

Entrepreneurs were encouraged not to feel daunted by their failures, but to use them as stepping stones on their journey.

This encouragement was given by Toni Thorne, Director of Thorne Publishing and Productions, while she gave a few remarks during the orientation ceremony of the YES Entrepreneurial Development Training Programme, which was held at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth yesterday morning.

She revealed that her first business failed and believed that if she had used the time that she took to mourn the loss of her unsuccessful business, she might be further than she is today. It is for this reason that she stressed the significance in recognising that it is important to see your failures as stepping stones in life.

Thorne also revealed that she dabbled in a number of different ventures, some of which have failed, but she was grateful for all the failures as they helped her get to where she is today.

“Never fear the unknown. That is something that, I’m sad to say, a lot of us Barbadians do. It is a part of the island mentality. When we do not understand something, our fear makes us push it away instead of hug it,” she said.

Another piece of advice Thorne gave the young entrepreneurs, was to stick to their goal and make sure they were passionate about it. She revealed that they were going to receive a certain level of backlash from persons, but having a vision, perseverance and passion was enough to make you endure or push through the inevitable backlash.

“It’s important to have a broad back,” she said.

“Some people are not going to like your product because it’s you and some will not like it because they don’t like it, but will have some constructive criticism to give. And don’t be so fearful of criticism that you label everybody a ‘hater’, because some people are not haters, they’re just there to give you constructive criticism.”

She shared with the entrepreneurs three questions to remember when faced with criticism: “Is this beneficial to me? Can I learn from this? Is there truth in what the person is saying?” She revealed that if the answer was ‘No’ to all three of these questions, then it was safe to move on. (CLF)