How to Fail Up to Succeed
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
– Thomas Edison
No one is an overnight success and at some point, we all fail. But failure doesn’t have to mean doom and gloom. In fact, failure is often the most valuable tool on the road to success. The trick is learning how to use it wisely. Understand why it happened. Celebrate it, and the positive benefits it provides for change. You’re one step closer to reaching your goal. It’s the art of ‘failing up.’’ to succeed.
How do we do that?
- Understand that our greatest asset is ourselves and our mindset. The greatest advantage we have on the craggy road to success, lies in our ability to embrace our failures, learn from them and carry on.
- Experience teaches us that success is not an outcome, nor is it a final destination. It’s is a learning process and more often than not, our aha moments come by persevering through failure – and sometimes multiple failures in our attempts at reaching our goals. Achieving our visions. We fail until we succeed.
- Accept that we will not always be successful. Succeeding once doesn’t guarantee we’ll succeed again, but it does increase our odds. It’s a squirrely little thing. There’s risk, both professionally and personally.
- Focus on now, but never lose sight of your vision. Always keep the end in mind.
- Embrace failure to build resolve, resilience and opportunity. It teaches us how to balance the ups and downs. In the long run, what we take out of failure is often more rewarding than an easy win.
Failure takes courage. Those who dared to fail were ultimately more successful, because their fear of failure was dwarfed by the belief that their success would make a difference, not only for their own lives, but more importantly for their communities and the world at large. So, they ‘failed up,’ and continued to ‘fail up’ until they succeeded.
Many of our most recognized successes started out as abject failures. What did they have that we don’t? They had the confidence in themselves and their vision to persevere and never give up. They learned from their failures and pushed on. We have that ability too. In fact, when we learn to fail up, we often the secret to what was holding us back.
There’s absolutely no doubt that when you make a commitment to be your best self ever, and put your plan into motion, good things start happening. And, if you have any doubts, just think of what out world would be like without the contributions of these 11 remarkable failures.
- The Beatles were rejected by a record company who not only didn’t like their ‘sound,’ but believed guitar music was on the way out.
- Charles Darwin’s father told him he was nothing but a lazy dreamer.
- Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor who told him he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.
- Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was 4 and couldn’t read until he was 7 causing his teachers to believe he was mentally handicapped.
- Dr. Seuss’s first manuscript was rejected 27 times by publishers, before it was finally accepted.
- Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’ was rejected so many times, he threw the manuscript in the trash. Luckily, his wife picked it out.
- Steve Jobs was fired by Apple.
- Henry Ford had 5 massive failures before he founded Ford Motor Company.
- R.H. Macy started and failed at 7 different businesses before his success with the department store.
- Babe Ruth – everyone knows him as the home run king, but did you know he also had a hefty 1330 strike outs in his career? When questioned about it, he used to say, ‘Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
- Rudyard Kipling was fired from his job as contributor to the San Francisco Examiner when the editor told him he didn’t understand how to use the English language.
And, in case you’re wondering about the Edison quote, his teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When questioned about his failures, he said, ‘I have not failed. I’ve just found 1,000 ways that won’t work.’
He never gave up. Neither should we.