Steve Harvey says,
Failure is a great teacher, and I think when you make mistakes and you recover from them and you treat them as valuable learning experiences, then you’ve got something to share. I have failed far more times than I have succeeded. You will never succeed more than you fail… That’s just not how it works. I’ve pitched more than 200 show ideas in Hollywood, out of those 200 they have picked 5 in 33 years of pitching. They don’t write about the shows that didn’t get picked, just the hits. So when you fail, it’s a part of the process. Keep going, you’re supposed to fail. Who you know that gets it right all the time? That’s impossible. Every time you fail, you’re one step closer to your goal.
Indeed his words certainly have meaningful insights in them.
Failure is one thing that everyone is ever so afraid of. We are afraid to fail because we think our life will be totally over if we fail. We are afraid to fail because we think people might say bad things us. We are afraid to fail because we don’t know what exactly to do after failing. There are many reasons on why we are afraid to fail. Each of us have our own unique reasons.
And it is for these reasons that we just HATE FAILURE.
Being so pessimistic will not change the situation. Failure just tells us what we are doing wrong.
What’s important is to keep moving forward despite failing.
Without failing, you will never know how much you can learn.
Failure shouldn’t be feared. It should be used to learn more about the subject in which you have failed.
Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” -Denis Waitley
Failure is never permanent, but giving up is.
To be successful you need to learn how to face failure. Indeed all those people whom we call successful today or whom we know as highly accomplished had to face failure in order to reach success. They truly used failure as a stepping-stone. Don’t treat failure as something catastrophic.
If failure is becoming common for you, then ask yourself why you had failed. Analyse the situation and think critically. Probably, I would say that this would be the best time to apply the problem solving skills you learned from so many years of doing Math in school (putting those math skills to good use, I’d say).
At first when you fail, it will seem as your whole world is collapsing and there’s very little you can do to avert the situation. However, if you rise above the failure- you will see that failure is taking you more closer to your goals.
Looking back at Steve Harvey’s story- he says that out of his 200 show ideas only 5 show ideas were picked in 33 years of pitching. Now, he doesn’t take that negatively. He says that it was part of the process and it took him more closer to his goal.
Dedication to our path despite success and failure determines our worth. That’s what Steve Harvey did. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be a successful entertainer, businessman and comedian today. In way, I believe failure prepares us for success. It makes us stronger so that we can face bigger storms of our life more boldly.
Failures are like roadmap to victory. Every failure teaches us a lesson. It is this lesson that tells us the secret to success. Sometimes you just find a new way to win by failing.
Failure makes the taste of victory even more sweeter.
You know, Colonel Sanders the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), his recipe was rejected 1009 times before a restaurant accepted it. Let’s look at some of his life events:
- At the age of 13 years, he left school. At the age of 14 years, he left home by himself.
- At the age of 15, he falsified his birth date to join the U.S.Army.
- At 18 years of age, he got married and when he was 19 years he became a father. Since Colonel Sanders could not hold on to a job his wife Josephine left him taking the children with her back to her parent’s home.
- He held a number of different jobs working as a streetcar conductor, a railroad fireman, an insurance salesman, a secretary, a tire salesman, a ferry operator, and a lawyer.
- Colonel Sander’s personal life was also full of tragedy. At age 65 he retired. He was going to commit suicide since he felt like a failure. When he sat down to write his will he ended up scribing what he would have accomplished with his life. He thought to himself about how a great cook he was. He borrowed $87 and fried some chicken using his recipe and went door to door to sell.
- At the age of 88 Colonel Sanders, the founder of the KFC empire became a billionaire.
Well, that’s Colonel Sander’s story in brief.
But his story definitely tells to me that-
“Sometimes you have to fail to figure out what works for you.”
Although Colonel Sanders didn’t achieve much success before his retirement, he had the strong will to reconsider his decision of ending his life and a give a chance to his talent of cooking. And you know what- he SUCEEDED. After working hard at so many jobs, he didn’t find the success that his hard work demanded. Even after such a turn of events in his life, he was able to find what he was looking for after his retirement with his passion for cooking. He didn’t suicide because he wanted to the give the best that was in him.
He says:
Do all you can and do it the best you can. It’s the only way you ever get that feeling of accomplishing something.
Oprah also shares how success can be built on failure. Here are her words from her Colorado Commencement Speech:
“So when I was 28, it wasn’t working out for me on the news because I was too emotional. I’d go to cover stories and cry because people lost their houses or lost their children. I was told that I was going to be taken off the evening news and put on a talk show–that was a demotion for me at the time. That actually worked out for me. So I would like to say that many times there are things that look like failure in your life. And I want to clear up because for years at every graduation I’ve said, ‘There’s no such thing as failure.’ Well, there is. I’ve said there’s no such thing as failure–it’s just life pointing you into a different direction. It does. It indeed does. But in the moment when you fail, it really feels bad. And it’s embarrassing. And it’s going to happen to you if you keep living. But I guarantee you, it also will pass and you will be fine. Why? Because everything is always working out for you.”
Everything is always working out for you– that’s Oprah’s mantra.
That believe is very important. Life has it’s up and down. Sometimes we fail and sometimes we achieve success. The believe that everything is always working out for gives you the power to rise above failure. If you are familiar with Oprah Winfrey’s life you must be aware that she faced a lot of challenges in her life. However, despite those hardships she managed to overcome them and built a life that she wanted.
Life is always speaking to us. And sometimes this is through failure as Oprah says.
Success is a process and failure is an indispensable part of that process. Failure is the ingredient that will give success it’s flavour. It’s what adds value to it.
Many of us assume that success is all about wining without having to encounter failure, however, the reality is that the more defeats you face the more your chances of realizing success.
I think it’s important to believe in yourselves. Everyone fails. All the successful people that the world knows today had faced failures and setbacks in their lives. But what made them successful, is that they kept trying despite the setback. Each failure made them more wiser and the person who they are today.
Remember you are getting better as you fail.
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm, says Winston Churchill.
It all depends on how you look at failure.