"Only if you stay in the game": Shark Tank's Barbara Corcoran discusses the biggest failure and its upside

Shark Tank mentor Barbara Corcoran shared a clip via Instagram on February 12, 2025, revealing how failure is related to "successes." The female entrepreneur chimed in on the subject while revealing how her successes are related to the "biggest failures" she had faced.

The Corcoran Group founder shared how after hitting the pavement "harder," the ball bounces back "higher." She mentioned that it was similar to business as well.

Barbara Corcoran captioned the Instagram clip with the following:

"Your biggest failure has the biggest upside, but only if you stay in the game."

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Shark Tank mentor Barbara Corcoran shares the effects of "failures" and how they lead you to "success"

In a recently shared Instagram reel, Barbara Corcoran opened up about her "biggest failures" and how they eventually led her towards "successes." She explained it quite easily by sharing the example in the clip.

"The harder the ball hits the pavement, the higher it bounces. And so it is with business. All of my successes happened on the heels of my biggest failures, and I always stayed in the game long enough to see it bounce back."

During one of her podcast appearances on The Jamie Kern Lima Show Podcast in December 2024, Barbara shared her thoughts on a similar subject. The Shark Tank mentor opened up about being underestimated and how it takes "commitment" to do that.

"It is very natural to feel underestimated because who you have is what you had so far and so it takes a bit of dreaming and commitment to go from where you are to where you want to go."

Referring to herself, Barbara recalled how she "had to" consciously keep on doing things, and that led her towards becoming a grown woman with her business. She shared that by age 30, she already had her business for about seven years.

The Shark Tank mentor revealed how there's a "tape in your head" and how it affects individuals. She discussed a phase where individuals needed to have the "beginning of changing the tape" in their heads. After learning about that, she mentioned how she started working on the "tape."

Initially, the "tape" inside her head told her that she didn't deserve certain things, wasn't "smart enough," and that she wasn't "being heard." However, as she learned more, she started "changing the tape little by little."

Self-doubts and the old version of the "tape" became something different and positive.

"It took me a number of years to really change it and my tape that I listen to now are tapes that shore me up. Things like, you're incredible. You're beautiful. You're brilliant. You're incre....this guy's really impressed by you, my God, what else can you do."

Further on the podcast, the Shark Tank mentor talked about how she felt successfully insecure and more during her discussion with fellow Shark Jamie Kern Lima.

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Fans can stream Shark Tank Season 16 episodes on ABC Network and catch Barabara Corcoran along with Jamie Kern Lima.