We put successful people on a pedestal and (almost) worship them as if their apparent success is a non-stop phenomenon! (For an example, simply watch how many followers Sir Richard Branson has on facebook and twitter)
Books on “How to become successful” – talk about success as if it is a one-way street with happy ever after ending!
While we are in awe of these successful people, we also become blind to the other important factor in success – Failure!
If you are at the receiving end – failure – is NOT fun! It is painful, demoralising and messes with your belief system. Failure haunts us in every walk of life including our business. It sucks!
But here is the good news!
Without exception failure is the bridge we must cross to reach success!
Success and failure are two sides of the same coin. The yin and yang. You cannot have one without the other just as there is no light without darkness or heat without cold.
Here is some proof!
Joe Girard: He went bust during a housing boom and had a speech impediment. He could not find a job for a long time and eventually got in to car sales at a local car dealership. Things didn’t go well for him there either, until one day he made a sale, because he was the only salesman that day! Eventually Joe became the most successful car salesman ever, according to the Guinness book of records.
Ruth Handler: Ruth, the brains behind ‘Barbie’ concept was not allowed to get in to the market by Mattel. Everything else was stacked against Ruth. Her design team and executives quit. Their own market research produced very negative feedback and pretty much all the toy shops refused to carry Barbie. Every so called ‘expert’ thought there was no demand for a grown-up doll. Within few months Mattel was selling 20,000 Barbie dolls a month!
Oprah Winfrey: She was sacked from her first job as a newsreader and was told she was NOT fit for TV.
Sir Philip Green: He was poor at school and carried a 15 year track record of failures in the rag trade. Now he is one of the wealthiest men in Britain.
Sir David Attenborough: He failed his BBC screen test in 1952 because his teeth were considered ‘fang-like’ for the British viewing public.
Henry Ford: Crazy Henry as he was known worked for Thomas Edison without much success. His Detroit Auto Company failed very quickly without producing anything. Even Ford Motor Company had series of failures including a Model ‘N’ flop. He kept failing forward, until in 1908 he successfully launched Model T.
Failure is not necessarily Fatal!
Even learning to walk as a child is fraught with failures. Children (I used to be one!) take failure in their stride and keep going (tumbling, falling etc…) until they can walk!
As we grow older, our schooling and work environment teaches us to fear failure and avoid it at all cost.
Failure is just a result we were NOT expecting
That’s all. Failure shapes and moulds us depending on how we look at it.
If we fear failure, we become very risk averse and end up living a ‘neither’ life (neither this nor that and just stay in a pretend ‘safe zone’). Fear of failure will paralyze us and hamper our growth.
On the other hand if we treat failure as a learning experience – we facilitate growth. Growth draws us back on to the path of success.
Here are six ‘mind-shifts’ to successfully deal with failure!
- Acceptance: Accept that failure is part of the success process. Although we may not welcome it, recognize failure as a stepping stone for success.
- There is no such thing as a failure. Only learning. A shift in mindset to accept failure as a learning process will bring us closer to success.
- Get up and go: Fail, fail fast, learn and then get up and go.
- Be prepared to course correct. Always be prepared to learn adjust and course correct, as there are many paths to the same destination.
- Keep going. When you feel like giving up, take the next step and keep going. You never know, with the next action success could be yours.
- Let go of attachment to the outcome. Being too attached to the outcome is like running a race while carrying a concrete block.
| “Failure is simply an opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford |
{ 0 comments… add one now }