Hope for the unintended outcome!
What if the best results in your business and life come from what you didn’t see coming? What if your last “failure” was actually a success in disguise? In this episode, I share stories of accidental inventions, personal surprises, and why looking for new opportunities in unexpected outcomes can be the real game-changer in both life and the wedding industry.
Listen to this new 8-minute episode for a fresh perspective on turning “failures” into unexpected wins and why being open to the unintended can lead to your next big success.
If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at [email protected] or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com
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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/
Hope for the unintended outcome. Listen to this episode. See what I’m talking about. Hey, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I thought this one the other night probably before I was going to sleep because that’s when I tend to write down some pretty good ideas. And the unintended outcomes very often turn out to be really good. And an unintended outcome could be looked at as a failure because what you originally tried to do didn’t work and then you got a different outcome instead.
And this is something that’s happened throughout the world. This is something that’s happened in all of our lives. We try for something, we get something else. Actually did a little research online for products that were not what they originally intended to be and they turned out to be a better product as something else. So Post-it Notes. The adhesive was invented and it failed. It was supposed to be a super strong glue and it turned out it didn’t.
But you could use it again and again. Kleenex. I didn’t know this one was launched as a disposable makeup remover towel, but customers started using it as a handkerchief replacement, which became its main purpose.
This was another strange one. Bubble wrap. Originally created as textured plastic wallpaper, then tried as greenhouse insulation before succeeding as packaging material. I can’t imagine this as textured plastic wallpaper because once you pop it, right, then it’s done.
Greenhouse insulation? Yeah. Maybe. Corn flakes was an accident. Chocolate chip cookies. A baker added chopped chocolate to a cookie dough, expecting it to melt completely, and it didn’t. The Popsicle. Because a child left a cup of soda powder and water with a stick outside overnight and it froze. Microwave oven.
Implantable pacemaker. X-rays. Penicillin. Viagra. Viagra was initially tested as a heart medication for chest pain. Trial participants reported a very different side effect, which became the main use of it. Slinky. Silly Putty.
I mean, all these things. And then I was thinking about in my business, my journey into the wedding industry was an unintended outcome. I thought I just needed a sales job to put money on the table because I hated the job I was in. My wife was pregnant. Many of you have heard this story. I took a job in a new industry that I knew nothing about. Never done outside sales, never done cold calling. Had a car, and it was straight commission.
And here I am 30-plus years later. It turned into this really lifelong career that I love. Unintended outcome: joining the National Speakers Association. I went to speak at a conference in Montreal for the forerunner to ILEA, International Live Events Association. They were originally called ISIS. Yes, they had to change the name. And I didn’t want to go to this event.
And I went and I spoke one time. Had no table to hand out anything for The Knot. I was there when I was VP at The Knot, and I get off stage and someone said, “Are you a member of the National Speakers Association? That was a great speech. You’re a great speaker. Do you know the NSA?” And I said, “No. What’s that? Why should I care?” Because I didn’t identify as a speaker. I identified as vice president of sales. And looking that up, I was like, well, let me go look it up.
And then here I am, what is it, going to be 19 years later that I’ve been a member and spoken around the world and one of 46 Global Speaking Fellows and all. And again, unintended consequences. I didn’t join because of that. I didn’t join to speak internationally or anything. It’s just this stuff happened.
During COVID, the videos I put up of my piano playing—as a friend of mine, Tim Sudol, kind of goaded me into putting the first one up there—we were just talking about that the other day, and it was just trying to do stuff during COVID, right? Just do things maybe to put a smile on people’s faces or whatever. And I ended up putting up charity links.
Somebody asked where my tip jar was, and I said, “I don’t want a tip jar, but I’ll put charity links.” And we raised about $4,000 for food banks. Unintended consequence. I did not put the videos up to do that.
I did not start learning Spanish so I would present in Spanish. I just wanted to be respectful of people when I go to their country, that I should know a little bit of their language. I didn’t intend to speak on stage, but I did. It’s Ask Alan Anything, right? I did not intend.
I did not make Ask Alan Anything for me to use. I made it for you to use so you could pick my brain anytime, run things by me. I had somebody message me just the other day and say, “Hey, could I run this by you?” I said, “Have you run that by Ask Alan Anything? Because that’s my brain, and you can do that anytime you need. You don’t have to wait for me.” And that’s why I created it.
But I’ve been using it to create new presentations. I used it to make my new book, AI for the Real World. Total unintended consequence. That’s not what I was trying to do with it.
Some of you have heard about my Berg bourbon blend. We blend other whiskeys together, add wood to make different ones. The purpose of that was to get rid of all the bottles of whiskey I had in the house. That’s what it was.
During COVID, somebody sent me an article that there’s a bourbon in every state. They make bourbon in every state. I wanted to see how many I had. I’m making this long story short. I had 26, including Washington, D.C., went on a quest to get every state, ended up with a whiskey from every state and bourbon from most, but whiskey from every state.
And at that moment in time, I had 92 open bottles of whiskey in my house. And I wanted to get rid of them. And re-gifting is kind of tacky because they’re all open, and just blending them together just to get rid of them—that was batch one and batch two.
Six bottles in this one, six bottles in there, different woods. And now we’re up to—what does it say here? Batch 51. Okay, I have batch 51 and batch 52 going. And that was an unintended consequence. And it became this wonderful thing that people love to share with me, that we love to share with people, gifts for clients and friends. And it’s just total unintended consequence.
My whole AI journey was a total unintended consequence because it was a conference I wasn’t going to go to.
And I ended up going last minute because I looked in the mirror and said to myself what I tell you, which is: good things happen when you’re there, right? You sit in your house, nothing’s going to happen.
Kind of like I told my wife recently, we were going to go somewhere and then she was having second thoughts on taking this little trip. And I said, “You know what? We always have fun when we go. If we’re home, we’re going to be sitting around doing home projects and watching TV. Let’s go.”
And we got in the car and took a drive and had a blast.
So what are the unintended outcomes that you’ve had from things that you’ve done? And you got a result that wasn’t the result you were looking for, but you got a different one. And sometimes it’s better because you couldn’t even imagine the results you got.
You imagined the result you thought you would get, not the one you got. And that’s why it’s so important to be open and say, “Is this a failure or is this just a different success?”
I think, again, the failure to me is not seeing the opportunity, not even trying to. I think the success is looking at the results you got and saying, “Hey, is this a good result, even if it’s not the one I was looking for? This is an unintended outcome, but man, this is better.”
And again, there’s even more things on this list. Vulcanized rubber. Super glue. Velcro. Text messaging was not intended for that.
It was built for mobile networks to send system alerts to customers, and people started using it to send messages to each other. Instagram started as a location check-in app. Vibram FiveFingers—these kind of shoe things where each toe goes into a different thing—designed for yacht racers needing grip on wet decks, but caught on with barefoot runners who wanted protection with minimal shoe.
So many different things. So many different things were not the result they intended or were looking for, and they got another result which turned out to be better, more successful for them.
So there are very few failures we have if we look at the outcome and say, “Is this still good? Maybe even better than we were looking for?”
Take a look back. It’s okay sometimes to look back and say, “Okay, these are some successes that were not what we intended, but they turned into a success.”
And then going forward, say, “I’m going to be open. I think this is the outcome we’re going to get. But let’s be open to, if it doesn’t come out with that outcome, maybe it’ll be better.”
Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected] or you can text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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