May 9, 2023

Continue to fail

I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw this video of Caroline Wanga, the CEO of Essence magazine. She said that not till the sixth fail does she get to make it a bad day. And I’m here for it! As a result, she becomes best in failure recovery, she gets up faster than anybody else, and she bounces back faster than anybody else. This reminds me of something the Spanx founder once mentioned (click here for the video). Her dad encouraged her to fail every week to redefine the term. Failure became about not trying rather than about the outcome

Who is CEO Wanga?

Carolina A. Wanga had a child and at the age of 17 she needed to get by. She worked at a non-profit for 7 years. But she couldn’t grow in the organization without a college degree. So she decided to go back to school. Then she started as an intern at Target. After a while, she came in contact with the Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion. She draw a map and at the top of that map was the position of VP of D&I. She saw her goal and she went for it! She spoke about it and worked hard. When she finally got the job, she thought about her new responsibility and made the conclusion that if she wanted to do this job well, she would’ve to show more of herself…

What can we learn from Wanga?

So she did: the hairstyle she liked … blue lipstick… she saw that nobody really noticed the changes. Because she was authentic and did her job really well. She stood out and was noticed by the owner of Essence. He eventually asked her to become the new CEO of Essence. Mind you, this is a whole different market. The owner was not spooked by the lack of knowledge in this market, rather he recognized that she was able to communicate who she was and that she was able to win whatever she put her mind to.

Image: Unsplash, by Sebastian Leon Prado