If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn you might have gathered from the abundance of quotes that I choose on the subjects, that I am fixated on the juxtaposition of failure and success. In fact, it’s two of my favourite and most often repeated quotes that led me to write in my blog after a fairly long absence. One is a quote by Colin L. Powell, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure Colin L. Powell”. The second is a humorous take on a William E. Hickson quote by W.C. Fields, “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it.”
With this in mind, here’s what recently came to my mind. Every day I have at least one new idea for a business that I'm absolutely certain will succeed. At the same time, I’m absolutely certain that if I tried even a few of them in conjunction with my current business, that each and every one of them, including my current business, would fail.
For me personally, it's very important to stay focused, and looking at many successful people, I've found the ability to focus to be a common trait. More important though, it's the ability to stay focused even when faced with failure. They seemed to focus on one thing and either mastered it or gave it their all but failed to become successful before moving on to the next thing. On the occasions that they failed, they moved on decisively; and those who achieved the greatest and most lasting success, had more instances of failure than success.
Of course there are those who appear only to succeed and never fail; those who seem to possess the mythical Midas Touch. Those however are very rare and a subject for another post. For most, the instances of failure are invariably greater than the occasions of measurable and lasting success.
So what does this mean? Well here’s what I’ve come up with: In order to succeed you first have to try. You have to try to prove that you can or prove that you can't. Once you’ve proven one or the other you’ll either have succeeded or failed at what you have tried. When you are done trying, move on. Your failures will provide you with the knowledge and wisdom you need to succeed and your successes with afford you the confidence, means and freedom to fail on your way to achieving new successes.
What do you think? Could failure be the key to success?
"Could failure be the key to success?" was written by Nigel Corneal nigel@thinkbdm.com http://thinkbdm.com/ and may be reprinted without permission provided that the entire article is used unedited and that this paragraph is included unchanged at the end of the article and made clearly visible to the reader.
