I recently met with Hugh Weber, President of Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment, and we had a great conversation about the synchronicity between failures and success. 

Hugh understands that in order to have a strong impact, you can’t be afraid to fail. I’d love to share the essential tips and lessons that I picked up from speaking with Hugh, so let’s dive into key highlights of our conversation. 

#1. Having a Vision and Mission is Key 

Although he did end up as a major figurehead in sports, early on in Hugh’s career, being an active leader in the sports industry was not necessarily his ultimate goal. 

However, he did have a strong vision and mission that carried him through to achieve the incredible accomplishments that have highlighted his career. 

Hugh shared that, as a kid, he wasn’t the one dreaming about what it would be like to own a baseball team. “I was really on a journey for my personal life. I had some amazing people in my life — teachers, coaches. I wanted to have that level of impact in other people’s lives,” Hugh continued. “For me, it was all about running teams and having an impact.” 

Hugh said that, after meeting the right people and giving his work his all, Hugh found his home in sports. For Hugh, directing teams to meet difficult objectives became a high-level way for him to achieve his mission of making an impact. 

#2. Build Confidence by Understanding Your Craft 

I had to ask Hugh how he built up his confidence to be able to achieve such massive wins, and overcome failures, at such a young age. 

Hugh said that he felt it was about finding your gifts and using them, saying “Understand your craft. What are you gifted in?” 

Hugh said that he believes all of us are here for a special mission — whatever that is for each one of us. “We’re all given special skills, abilities, and talents to do those things,” said Hugh. “If you can actually tap into it, you’re doing really great things.” 

I really resonated with this because I believe that we all need to live our character traits. Finding what we’re naturally attuned to is critical for developing the confidence and perseverance needed to get our boots on the ground and create the life we want to live. 

Hugh shared that his gifts were focused on his ability to connect people, contextualize challenges, and manage the team’s trust. “This was something that inspired me,” said Hugh. 

#3. Failures and Successes are Lessons to Learn From 

For Hugh, he said he was able to foster immense success by finding small failures and experiences along the way that have taught him big lessons — ultimately helping him strategize his future actions. 

“I was always looking for those marginal ways to improve. Sometimes we look at failures and success as binary — either you did it, or you didn’t,” explained Hugh. “I think success and failure are much more interesting if you get inside of what could you have done better. It’s the idea of continually pushing yourself and pressing yourself.” 

This made me think of Tony Robbins’ concept of CANI — “constant and never-ending improvement.” 

Hugh said that we need to be able to look at both success and failure and think about the little things we could have done better to help us improve the next time around. 

I had so much fun synching with Hugh. Never miss a beat — subscribe to my podcast here!