Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that’s me) shares one way to achieve a breakthrough at work — and build a career or company you love.
This edition is brought to you by OuterSignal, which gives you unprecedented detail into every customer you have. Info below.
You want to try something… but you’re not doing it.
Maybe it’s a business concept, a career change, or a personal curiosity. It excites you, but you keep thinking: “What if I fail? What if I waste my time and money?”
So you do nothing. And the idea stays trapped in your head.
Today, I’ll help you move forward with a powerful strategy: Shift the accomplishment. It’s a way of rethinking what success looks like — helping you try new things, and being OK if they don’t work out.
But first, let me tell you about the person who inspired this idea. She tried something big, watched it fail, and emerged feeling… surprisingly grateful.
Shutting down her business
I just received an email from Kaitlyn Allen, a reader of this newsletter. She had some bad news.
Kaitlyn had been building a company called Mendit, which helped people find specialists to mend and repair clothing. The idea was to reduce waste and save people money.
But it didn’t work.
“I’m closing Mendit,” she told me. “The purported demand for innovation in the fashion/apparel industry is just not there in a meaningful way, at least for repair. But at least I gave it my all, and I’m so glad I did, because I would have always wondered.”
I love that last part. Kaitlyn was sad, but she wasn’t bitter or regretful. She was grateful.
Why? Let’s break it down, because this is really important.
Shifting what counts as success
When we start something new, we often treat the outcome as validation.
Our thinking goes like this:
- If it succeeds, then we’re smart and the idea was worth doing.
- If it fails, then we were foolish and wasted our time.
- Therefore, if our idea fails, we fail.
In that way, failure becomes a reflection of our worth.
But that’s not fair! We can’t control outcomes — we can only control our own actions. That’s why Kaitlyn’s mindset shift was so important.
It looks like this:
Kaitlyn’s accomplishment wasn’t “building a successful company” — it was answering a question that nagged at her.
That really is an accomplishment! Most people never act on their big idea. They never pursue a large desire. They never satisfy an aching curiosity. They never know.
But Kaitlyn did. And now she knows. And knowing was better than wondering.
That is absolutely an accomplishment.
It’s also a powerful and freeing way to think. The pressure lowers. The stakes reduce. Accomplishment becomes firmly within our control.
The experimental mindset
This ties to one of my favorite pieces of advice, which I just shared in a September newsletter.
I was talking to behavioral scientist Katy Milkman, who explained how to get un-stuck when making a hard decision.
Her answer was simple and beautiful: Treat it like an experiment.
We often avoid new things because they feel like commitments. We think: If I don’t like this, I’ll be stuck with it for a long time. So we never try it at all.
But when we frame something as an experiment instead, we remove the pressure.
Consider it: When a scientist runs an experiment, do they expect it to succeed? No! The goal is to simply find out what happens.
If those are the stakes, then the path forward becomes clearer. You’re not committing to a new life; you’re testing a hypothesis. You’re not risking everything on one outcome; you’re gathering data.
Every action is worthwhile.
And what happens next is growth
When Kaitlyn’s company didn’t work out, it didn’t mean she was a bad entrepreneur. It meant the market wasn’t ready for her solution, or the timing wasn’t right, or the business model needed adjustment. That’s not a personal failing — it’s market feedback.
And that feedback is incredibly valuable.
Kaitlyn now knows more about the industry than she did before. She built a network who respects her. Years from now, she’ll likely look back at Mendit as the moment she learned something critical, which informed the great thing she does next.
In other words: Kaitlyn shifted the accomplishment… and also set up future accomplishments.
That’s because we are not the sum of our achievements. We are the sum of our actions.
We grow based on what we do, not based on what we win.
All you need to do is… do.
That’s how to do one thing better.
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