Failure to Success

FAILURE:

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That is a word that most people dread. Everyone wants to be a success. We want to be liked and admired.

But that dreaded “F” word always pops up. Failure. This experience is strong enough to make you want to quit and start a new life.

It is no different for any entrepreneur. Or anyone trying to make something special out of their life. Whether it is getting ahead in your career or losing weight or taking items off of your bucket list.

Success takes time and effort.

You may fail many times you will fail before you are successful. Ask just about anybody who has become successful if they have ever failed at any aspect of their journey. Chances are you will get quite a few stories of missteps and blunders.

The difference between long-term success and failure is the reaction to it.

People who, as Charlie Sheen said many years ago are “winners,” find a way to overcome the obstacles and persevere after failure.

Failure happens. Live with it! Learn from it!
There is a need to change the view on failure.

It is not something that needs to be avoided. It is a chance to learn something that does not work!

It is not always reaching the destination that defines the man (or woman), but the journey that is taken to get there. The biggest successes have gone through the biggest failures.

If you are struggling in your life…or even if you’re looking for small business opportunities… don't be afraid to try things that are “new” “different” and perhaps even fly in the face of conventional wisdom. The worst thing that can happen is failure… which is just a chance to learn and grow.

To illustrate the point, here is a list of 30 famous people people who are/were successful, but experienced massive failure at one point in their lives.

Not only did these people fail, but they failed on a massive scale. Yet history still views these successful people who failed as great success stories because they bounced back and succeeded in the end.

So let's talk about the specific setbacks that these individuals experienced.

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1. Thomas Edison:

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“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison

Chances are you have heard of Edison in relation to overcoming failure before. He was a master of trial and error. Someone who wasn't afraid to make lots of mistakes in order to succeed.

When asked about the many thousands of failures he had when trying to create the light-bulb he famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

But there is even more to it than that. As a child, he was thought to be dumb and told that he would never be a success by many of his teachers because his mind would often wander in class.

Good thing for us that the greatest inventor in history did not listen.

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2. Elvis Presley:

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When things go wrong, don't go with them. – Elvis Presley

You do not need to be an Elvis fan to acknowledge the impact he has had on popular music. They don’t dub somebody the “King” of a form of music without a great amount of success.

But for Elvis success came after failure.

Elvis failed his music classes. He was a social misfit as a boy.

He was working as a truck driver while trying to get his recording career off the ground. After his first paying gig, his manager told him, “You ain’t going’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving’ a truck.”

But Elvis persevered. His first recordings went nowhere. He tried to join a vocal quartet and was told he, “couldn’t sing”.

But finally, his music caught a groove, and after all that failure he ended up becoming one of the most popular recording artists in history.

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3. Michael Jordan:

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It is hard to imagine it, but the Jordan, who is arguably the greatest basketball player ever, was once cut from his high school team.

From not being on able to stay on his high school team, Jordan kept working at it and kept improving.

He made the team at North Carolina and became a star college player. Then he played for the Bulls creating an armful of titles.

Then in the middle of his career, he took a few years off to try out his dream of becoming a professional baseball player. He ultimately failed in this effort to get to the major leagues but was able to have some good games in the minor league.

But even in basketball, where he is the GOAT. He got his success through hard work after failure. As Jordan puts it:

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

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4. Stephen King:

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It is my opinion that Steven King is the greatest living writer.

He is incredibly prolific. Having written over 60 novels. Many of which are quite long. He is popular. And at 72, his new releases almost always land at the top of the best-seller lists.

But King wasn't born being a writer.

He wrote stories as a teenager and college student, collecting a huge backlog of rejected stories he stored in a large crate.

King was working as a teacher in rural Maine when he wrote his first novel, “Carrie”.

By this time King had some small success selling short stories previously, but nothing that anyone could build a career around.

King submitted “Carrie” 30 times. King was rejected 30 times.

Before his 31st attempt, he threw the manuscript out.

His wife rescued it from the round file and asked him to try one more time. The rest…is history.

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5. Abraham Lincoln:

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If Lincoln had quit when the going got tough, the world might be a very different place.

As a young man Lincoln entered military service in the Black Hawk war as a captain. Yet left as a private.

With very little formal education, Lincoln taught himself and became a lawyer and congressman.

His real rise to national prominence could also be viewed as a “failure”. In 1858 Lincoln tried for a seat in the Illinois senate. This led to a series of hotly contested debates, known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Lincoln lost the senate election, but really impressed a lot of the right people, even with his loss. So he kept at the politics thing.

Two years later he ran for president and won.

Thankfully he did not let lack of formal education, a spotty career of failures, or initial political failure rattle him, and he went on to become one of our greatest presidents.

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6. Albert Einstein:

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Any one who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new--Einstein.

If asked to name a genius, most people would come up with the name Albert Einstein. Yet even for Einstein genius did not come easy. He had speech difficulties as a child and was once even thought to be mentally handicapped.

As a teen he rebelled against his school's reliance on rote learning and failed.

He tried to test into Zurich Polytechnic, but failed again (although he did very well in the math and physics section…as you might expect).

Einstein buckled down, received the requisite training and applied to Zurich Polytechnic again, and of course, was accepted.

A few years later he had a Ph.D. and was recognized as a leading theorist. A few years after that he had a Nobel prize for physics and began to be recognized as the genius of our modern era.

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7. Harland David Sanders:

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For many of us, experiencing two or three rejections can be disheartening. Imagine how it must have been for Harland David Sanders, whose fried chicken recipe was rejected over 1,000 times.

When Sanders was 65 years old, he found himself bankrupt after his restaurant business had failed.

He drove around in his car, pleading with diner and restaurant owners to use his fried chicken recipe. The deal was that for every piece of chicken sold, they were to give him a nickel as a commission.

He was turned down 1,009 times before a restaurant agreed to use his recipe, which he called Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Today, Colonel Sanders is an iconic figure representing one of the tastiest fried chickens in the world.

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8. Walt Disney:

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When you look at how Disney’s animated movies have become a household name, you would find it difficult to imagine that their creator once faced rejection.

When Walt Disney was 22, he worked for a newspaper firm in Missouri. Disney was fired from his job. The reason? He lacked creativity, according to the newspaper editor.

Disney disproved this, however, by winning more than 30 Academy Awards for his animated film featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse. The rest is history.

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9. Lady Gaga:

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Her style, persona, and talent have captured the world’s attention, and Lady Gaga is now one of the best-selling artists of her era.

She has received numerous awards and widespread recognition for her talent. Furthermore, she has been recognized as one of the most influential women in the world.

Nevertheless, when she was starting out, she had her fair share of disheartening experiences. A major record label signed her on, but after three months, she was dropped from their roster of artists.

But it’s a good thing for her that they let her go. Lady Gaga ended up experimenting and developed her style further, creating the iconic performer and artist that she is today.

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10. Isaac Newton:

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“My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.” – Isaac Newton

From the get-go, it was clear that Isaac Newton was not cut out for farm work. He was more of a contemplative type than a hard worker.

But the family needed someone to handle their affairs at the farm, and convinced Isaac to do it. And he failed. Miserably.

It was this epic failure that convinced his family to let him finish his studies instead—and the whole world benefited from it, as his contributions have help us understand how the world works.