If at first you don’t succeed then try, try again. That’s what I learned as a child. But there’s an important step between trying. ‘ Assessing Feedback’.

The kid in the picture swings at the piñata, misses, his brain registers it’s not there (feedback), he swings again but this time with an adjustment, he repeats this until he gets what he wants…goodies.  It sounds simple but it shows that intuitively we all know to assess feedback and adjust accordingly.

All behavior/results are a feedback loop. You try to get what you want. If you fail, you can choose to try the same thing again.  But doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insane…at least Albert Einstein thought so.  Imagine the boy missing the piñata but swinging again, and again in the exact same place.

How to get what you want

Here’s how to get what you want in life and business.  Attempt to discover what went wrong, and what the first try taught you (feedback), adjust your strategy, and try again.  So it looks like this:

Try – Fail – Assess Feedback – Adjust Strategy – Try Again – Fail Again – Assess Feedback Again – Adjust Strategy Again

Do this over and over until you get the result you want.

For marketers this process used to take a long time.  It still can depending on what you’re testing.  However, the rise of social media makes feedback almost instant.  Either users click the ‘Like’ button or they don’t.  Either they share your story with their friends or they don’t.

Something to make you go…hmm!  If we don’t teach kids the important middle step (assessing feedback) we’re simply training them to go insane.