This post was inspired by THE KEY TO SUCCESS IS FAILURE by Kerwin Rae
It’s not only that failure is critical for success: Failure is the key to success
Most people, especially in the business world, fear failure.
Failure is regarded as something we need to avoid at all costs. Failure is for losers. We think that failure is going to prevent us from achieving success. The truth of the matter is, that we couldn’t be more wrong.
In truth, failure is critical for success. It’s actually the key to success!
We need mistakes to get us to the next level
To quote Kerwin Rae:
“The biggest challenge for most entrepreneurs is not that they don’t have the ability to succeed. It’s just they don’t understand that failure is the key and the ****** pathway to actually becoming successful.
We walk around trying to build businesses and be so ****** precious that we are tiptoeing through our business, trying to not make a mistake because G-d forbid we should look bad in the eyes of other people around us.
Whereas, we actually don’t realize that those mistakes that you’re trying to avoid are the very things you need in order to get the lesson to go to the next stage.”
In Proverbs 24:16 it states – “For a righteous man can fall seven times and rise, but the wicked shall stumble upon evil.” Rabbi Isaac Hutner of blessed memory writes that most people wrongly interpret this passage saying that despite falling, the righteous arise.
On the contrary: It is precisely because they fall that they learn to get back up and develop into righteous people. It’s only when we fall, and find the inner strength to stand up and try again, that we develop our character and truly find our inner selves.
To fail but to keep trying brings self-awareness, real maturity, and depth.
We have to realize that all people succumb to failure. The difference lies in whether or not you give up. Whether you pick yourselves up and go back into the fray again and again until eventually, you succeed. Lose the battles, but win the war.
Michael Jordan famously said “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed”.
We need to embrace failure
So how do we turn the failure into success?
Kerwin Rae suggests we have to recalibrate our attitude and approach to failure, by asking the following four questions:
- What is the benefit of this?
- What lessons am I learning from this?
- Are there any skills I am getting now that I didn’t have before?
- How is this going to get me closer to where I want to go faster than what I’ll do without them?
When you ask those four questions, the failure turns into a lesson. The lessons give you skills and the skills actually give you the power to drive forward faster than what you would on your own.
After multiple failures but finally succeeding to create the first light bulb Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Imagine if you as a baby decided to give up trying to walk or talk because you failed to do it correctly the first, second, or third time. Babies succeed because they don’t dwell on their failures and give up. They don’t over-think and talk themselves out of their objective. They see success all around them and endeavor to do the same.
We have to embrace failure as a stepping stone to our eventual success. But this can only happen if we allow ourselves to fail and learn to grow from the experience.
Failure is not truly failure unless you’ve neglected to learn from the experience. It may be painful and difficult, but you must muster the strength to allow self-awareness in on the process. If you avoid it, you are dooming yourself to permanent failure.
Be it in business, relationships, and life, we just need to keep in mind that failure is critical for success. Embrace your failures, learn from your failures, grow from your failures, and only then can you truly become successful!
Wishing you all the success in the world!
If you have something to add to continue this conversation further, hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn! I look forward to hearing from you!
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