Failure

I once attended a meeting wherein a very successful businessman was talking about success. He told the story of his sister, a woman who had spent most of her life strung out on drugs. She had just been released from rehab and had come to him for a job.

Because of her past history of rehab, regression and back again, he was reluctant to put her on the payroll. However, because he wanted to help, he made her a deal. He gave her a list of books - self-help books, for the most part - and said that for every book she read, he would pay her $100. However, just to make sure that she not only read the book, but that she understood it as well, she had to write a 3 page book report to get paid.

This continued for about a year, and towards the end, he was paying her more than he had expected every month. Finally, she told him that she didn't need his help anymore and went out and started her own business and is doing very well.

One day he asked her what she thought was the formula for success. She thought about it for a while and then responded with this formula: knowledge + persistence + ____________ = success. Can you guess what goes in the blank? It's not faith - faith gives you persistence. It's not hard work - that too, is covered by persistence. The answer is failure.

I left that meeting not remembering anything else the businessman said. But I pondered that formula for a very long time and decided to do my own research and see if she was right. I read biographies and autobiographies of hundreds of successful people. I read success-oriented books like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Science of Self Confidence by Brian Tracy and Superself by Charles Givens, as well as many of the works by Stephen Covey, Wayne Dyer and others. And guess what? She was right!

You see, so many of us believe that failure is the end. But it is not. Thomas J. Watson, the CEO of IBM, who adopted the trademark “THINK” was asked by a young reporter how one could increase the rate of their success. His reply, "If you want to increase your success rate, then you should increase your failure rate." In other words, don't be so afraid of failing that you never try at all.

Napoleon Hill states that if you don't succeed at something, it doesn't mean that you are a failure. It just means that your plans are not sound. Rethink your objectives, redo your plans, and try again.

I watched an episode of Oprah a few years ago. On her show, she presented 4 entrepreneurs who had achieved great success before the age of 35. Just before they went to a commercial break she asked them how many different businesses they had started before they were successful. When they came back, she stated, to a stunned audience that the average - not the total, but the average for each of the business owners was 19! On average, each one of them had started nineteen different businesses and failed before they were successful.

Of course, I am not advocating that we should applaud failure. I am advocating that we don't let our own failures define who we are. And even more importantly, don't let the failures of others cause you to define them. Failure is only temporary - all failure is temporary. All.

Even if one never overcomes their failures during their entire life, they will in the life hereafter. All failure is a learning tool. We don't learn from our successes - only to repeat what we have already done. But life is not stagnant - it is dynamic and changing. How many real estate investors collapsed when the market went down? Even those who achieved huge success suffered the loss of all they had - because the only thing in life that never changes is the fact that everything changes.

So our failures teach us how to adapt and overcome - unless we allow them to overcome us. When you get kicked down - when you fail - pick yourself up, dust yourself off and look life in the eye and say, "I will not quit!" Most people know that Winston Churchill's final address to Parliament consisted of only seven words. Leaning heavily on his cane, the man who led Great Britain through its most perilous hours spoke slowly into the microphone, "Never give up. Never, never give up!" He then returned to his seat.

All of us fail. Very few of us are failures. Throughout the history of mankind, only a handful of individuals could truly be called failures.

Have hope. Be not afraid and move forward with confidence that you will eventually figure it out. Someday, perhaps very soon, you will succeed. Life is like a roller coaster. It has its highs and its lows. It seems to move at breakneck speeds. We just need to hold on and enjoy the ride.