We all take it for granted, but every time we turn on a light, we benefit from someone else’s failure. Thomas Edison failed to invent the light bulb 999 times. And then he succeeded. Without his failure, we would not have the light bulb as we know it. We might still be using kerosene lamps or tesla electric contraption thingamawatsits.
Colonel Sanders was 65 when he retired and tried to sell his fried chicken recipe. He pitched and cooked his now famous secret recipe, for 1010 restaurateurs. That’s 1009 failures. His persistence brought about 1 success. And the rest is history.
Henry Ford failed in big way several times in business. Of failure he wrote: ‘Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.’
I could go on and on, listing all the men and women who have failed at their endeavours, not once, but many times over in the pursuit of success. History is littered with stories of triumph over adversity, success after failure. You don’t have to search hard.
Why? Because we humans are fascinated by stories of success. We’re inspired by them. We want to model those successful few. We want to believe in our own ability to succeed, because we’ve all, each and every one of us, failed at something that meant something to us, and that failure was more than likely painful at least once. We want to believe, we want to achieve. And we can, if only we can use the lesson of persistence.
Can we always set out to complete our original goals? Not always. But as the above examples point out, it can often take unbelievable levels of commitment to a cause or faith in a product to reach a desired outcome. If you quit too soon, you might miss your turn.
Does that mean that we should always keep going? Is unfaltering persistence the key?
Perhaps at some point we come to a cross roads and we have to decide do we keep going, doing what doesn’t seem to be working, or do we stop this action and find another option. When god (or whoever) gives us lemons, do we make lemonade? Or do we keep going in the same direction we were going in, never faltering in our own self-belief?
I don’t think I can give you the right answer here. I don’t think there is a one true answer. It probably depends on how desperately you want to achieve something and how much you’re prepared to sacrifice for it. Maybe it depends on your attitude too. Maybe those with good self-esteem and a positive mental attitude can withstand persistent no’s.
When you’re feeling weak or pessimistic or lacking in self confidence, even one soft no can be enough to knock you down and stop you getting back up.
So maybe that’s it. If you really want to achieve success in life, don’t even start unless you have found your happy place and accepted that it may take failure after failure, year after year before you achieve what you set out to achieve. Although, maybe you’ll develop strength and confidence as you go along, failure after failure. Maybe you’ll develop a thicker skin. Maybe you can fake it till you make it.
Hundreds of famous authors received countless rejections before they became successful. Few authors or writers have succeeded without at least a handful of rejection letters. These days, publishers don’t even get in touch to tell you you’ve been rejected. Personally, I don’t like rejection so I’m posting my book for free as a blog. I’m also not very good at delaying gratification so the fact is that I could be throwing away an opportunity to publish by giving it away for free. But you never know. I could die before I get my book out there. Maybe it’s not even that good. Maybe I’m not that good.
So I’m taking the next best thing here. I am owning my failure in mental fortitude. I’m making lemonade instead. I’m using the tools at my disposal. And who’s to even say that selling lots of copies of a book is even what I want? I mean, sure it would be nice, but I am happy with my life right now, so what means more to me is getting it written down and out of my head, to give to my daughters and anyone else who may benefit.
Success doesn’t really matter. It’s not the only thing that defines you. But at least you know that if you want to make a success out of failure, you can do it with the right attitude and a lot of persistence.