#FailureMatters

Quite an unorthodox title, but, allow me to explain. Goalcast, a motivational website, has these amazingly inspiring stories of people who have had BIG failures that paved way for great triumphs. People like Thomas Edison, Tyler Perry, Jack Ma and so many more. In last week’s post I wrote, “There will be days when failure will come knocking. Its ok! Open the door.” We readily admit that success is often attached to how many times we failed. Failure is JUST a door to get to your destination. You HAVE to go THROUGH it.

Tyler Perry’s first play was, “I know I’ve been changed.” He was expecting 1200 people to attend the show. Only 30 people showed up! Talk about epic fail. But that didn’t stop him. In his heart he knew that this was the prerequisite to his success. “Don’t you ever change one brush stroke on your canvas because somebody don’t like what you paint.” He said, encouraging people to know your craft and stick with it no matter how many times you fail.

With a flick of a switch we can turn on a light. But many of us don’t even know the backstory. Thomas Edison tried to create the light bulb 1000 times. Talk about persistence. Some would have given up after the third try. All 1000 times he was left unsuccessful. This teaches us that we need to change our perspective on how we look at failure. When he was asked about how he felt for failing all these times, he said, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” It is all about perspective and persistence.

Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was 4 years old. And it was at the age of 7 that he learned to read. Talk about delay. When things are postponed in our lives, we need to learn to be patient. It WILL happen if we endure a little while longer.

Jack Ma practically failed at everything that he applied for and continuously. Talk about heart. Attached is his resume:

• Primary school test – failed twice
• Middle school – failed three times
• Job applications – denied 30 times
• Police Academy application – Result: not good enough
• KFC application – 24 applied. 23 got the job except him
• Harvard application – rejected 10 times

Ouch! Today, he is the founder of Alibaba, one of the largest Ecommerce businesses in the World. Classifying him as one of the wealthiest man in Asia with a net worth of 39.8 Billion American Dollars. His story teaches us to keep going each time we fail, never, ever, ever give up. Imagine if he got the job at KFC? He might have been preoccupied with them and neglected a more promising pursuit. When you are predestined to be great, you cannot afford to be complacent.

If these people didn’t fail when and where they did, I’m not sure that we would ever know or hear of them. This is the mutual lesson they learned, “It is ok to fail.” Failure matters because without it, you wont become resilient. Failure matters because it is necessary for triumph. I used to view failure as the final destination and not as stepping stone to something greater. Because of this belief every time I failed at something I called it quits. Too few people stand and face their failures. They don’t dare to stare it in the eyes.

“The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” – Thomas Watson Sr. Next time you are faced with an epic failure, do you know what you are going to do? You are going to get up, brace yourself and go at it again. Stare the failures and the “limitations” dead in the eye and don’t flinch. Whatever they said you can’t do or have, go for it!  Regardless of how many doors that were closed before, one door will open eventually. Barge forward into every door of opportunity.

Please, leave a comment. I would love to hear how this post has inspired and will impact you. Take a minute and share with someone who could use it. Help me inspire others.

Thank you for reading.
Ciao!