HENRY FORD: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
Failure, to my understanding and experience, is of two kinds: One Material Failure where our action/inaction/application/proposition/supposition and/or skills failed to deliver the desired result and the other is when we consider ourselves a failure by taking the first failure too personally.
The above observation is born out of my personal interaction with, and I’m sure you would most likely agree with me as well, such individuals that take transitory failure, even repeat failure, as a black mark on their own character or career and force themselves into depression, stress and other medical conditions.
These individuals lose the urge to fight adversity and lay down their arms in abject surrender. More often than not, such lack of drive and initiative to improve their lot leads to situations where continued downfall becomes a certainty rather than an exception.
The need of the hour is for us to resurrect ourselves like the Phoenix, the legendary bird that rises out of its own ashes. How else could you see progress in life? So long as we recognize that success and failure are the two wheels of a bicycle that continue to move in tandem, rather in a synchronized fashion, taking turns one by one, we can look forward to the change and prepare accordingly.
The title invoking success as the product of failures is only a Universal fact. Looking into the life-history of any number of luminaries that society has known over the last so many centuries, there’s perhaps only a handful of individuals that were gifted with all the imaginable pleasures right since birth. More or less each one of them saw adversity, even dire adversity at that, if I may. Yet they did what was essential for them to do and create a fine example of stealth, wisdom, intellect, perseverance and so on and so forth, in no small measure.
There’s a saying back home, in india to the effect that after every dark night the day breaks out in all its glory. This is proof enough to claim that success is not far behind each failure; we just need the patience, the perseverance and faith to see it happen.
Another example that comes to mind is that of an infant. While learning to take its first few steps, the little baby falls many times over but does that failure give us the right to claim or even assume that this baby is incapable of ever walking in his/her life? No, of course not! Then what makes us believe that our failure is not transitory and success will follow sooner rather than later.
They say: ‘Sweeter is the Smell of Success’. Does it not give us proof enough that success born out of failure/s gives us more pleasure? I think it does, how about you?
Continued failure in life indicates your continued struggle against the same. Once you taste little success, your energies get a boost and you start to follow the changed pattern with more zeal and vigour. This is where your resilience comes to the fore, your ‘never-say-die’ spirit takes over and you start to notice the difference.
More we fail to accept failure, the more success we are destined to experience in our lives…
This is how you convert failure, even repeat failure into enduring success!
Try It, You Might Like It…
Many characters have passed into history for many inventions, but what is often overlooked is how many different paths they attempted to create the significant success. They learned by combining disparate technologies and concepts, and experimenting repeatedly. The failure of any given experiment doesn’t block the work, but simply opens new areas for exploration and creates new learning.
In many corporations experimentation is viewed with suspicion. Outside of research and development teams experimentation is a dangerous word. Experimenting has lost its luster and is often equated with “winging it”, rather than an attempt to extend insight and knowledge. In an environment where everything must be perfect the first time, experimentation loses and sameness wins. It is far safer and much easier to simply copy a competitor’s product, or channel, or business model rather than experiment with new offerings. While the returns are marginal when copying, there’s no “wasted time” or wasted effort experimenting to create something new and interesting, that is more than likely to “fail”.
Good experimentation means you’ll have lots of failures, but obtain a lot of learning.
Good innovators understand that experimentation is vital to gaining new insights and new knowledge.
Experimentation is increasingly necessary across all business functions. Experimenting doesn’t increase risk and inefficiency, it lowers failure rates and increases insight and learning.
I feel so elated to have your personal take on my submissions, Aldo Sir! Your deep-rooted analysis and supportive pragmatism have bowled me over more than once.
Heartfelt Thanks, with Warm Regards
BM
Success is born from those that have paid the price for failure, may it be for others, or for their own.
What a wonderful observation, Chris! You speak the truth laced with the flavour of first-hand experience. The unfortunate part of failure is it hurts our urge to fight. Those that heal fast and keep going with all their might are the ones to taste success, not the weaklings…
Thank You Chris Pehura!!!
I agree with your perspectives Bharat. We will never really fail if we get up when we fall down.
Thank You Ms Jane for your agreement. Our experiences, both good and bad, are the best guides, teachers and motivators so long as we empower them. Shrugging away from failures spells doom