There is nothing more frustrating than failing. I'm learning that quickly in this new business. It amazes me how many ways there are to fail, how many things can go wrong, and how many times you can make mistakes that cause terrible things to happen. That's why I love my company.
Yes, you heard me right. I love my company because it is helping me to fail.
In life, we all fail sometimes. We have moments when the things we worked for fall apart, moments where we hit a brick wall, where we want to give up for good. The problem is that for most of us, those moments don't come often enough. Because these failures only come on occasion, when they do come, we do not have the tools that are necessary to effectively utilize them. Here's an example:
In our current economy, a lot of people have lost their first house. They had never lost a home before, and suddenly everything they worked for, the house they thought their kids would grow up in, is gone. A devastating loss. Since it was so devastating, and not something they were used to, most of them became afraid to purchase again. Most of them lost what they had and, because of their reaction to the failure, they guaranteed that they would never have it again. It's like breaking your leg in a car accident, but instead of learning to be more cautious and to not drive too fast, you chop off your driving leg and never set foot (not feet, since you now only have one) in the driver's seat again! You don't murder your potential because of a wound. You grow stronger from it. You learn from it. You become "bigger" from it.
It's like we all start as baby businessmen (and ladies). We are incredibly fragile, and if we ignore this baby businessman part of us, it goes into a coma, or it dies. These are the ones that say "Oh yea, I tried that once. I gave it a month and it doesn't work. You are wasting your time and your money." However, if we survive the baby stage, we become toddlers. We know just enough, and are just big enough to start walking and running, but plenty small enough to really hurt ourselves. If we have good mentors, we might learn to stop before we put our hand on the stove, but we are usually stubborn businesstoddlers. So of course, we don't listen to our businessparents, and we stick our hands in the outlets and take crayons to our office wall. (It's a great stress reliever actually...) Other times, we just fall, because we are still learning to walk, and crashing happens often. This is the phase where it really hurts if we quit. Because the failures are bigger, if we don't learn from them, we die the worst kind of death... the slow death. We slowly quit, slowly lose hope, slowly poison our souls with lies. We are just old enough to really suffer before we truly kill our potential. My heart goes out to you if you are one of these people.
Finally, we begin to grow up. Our potential starts becoming reality. We start getting the hang of things, and we start seeing real success. We still fail, but we know how to use our failures. We are inspired by them, motivated by them, and instructed by them. Our failures taught us enough to where we have become who we want to be. It is a beautiful thing.
But we only get there by failing. If you try to walk, you will fall. I promise. Yet, if you never try, and never fail, you will never walk. I can promise you that too. Now wait; here comes the best part...
I've been thinking about mottos lately, and one of them that came to mind today, after my most recent failure was "We fail so you don't have to." Doesn't sound too inspirational, does it? But it's true! No one wants to follow a failure, because a failure chose to stay down when they fell. But someone who has never failed still hasn't even gotten up. I hope to follow people who have failed hundreds of times, if not thousands. That is one of the marks of a true leader. Extensive failures equal extensive experience, and extensive wisdom. If they have already made that mistake, taking their advice protects me from ever having to fail in that same way. It's like getting to skip a lot of the toddler failures and enjoying the fruit of success sooner. We are literally leveraging other's failures to create success for ourselves. It is incredible.
Now, when I fail, I see that I have just experienced opportunity. Now, I can share my failure, and share what I learned from it, so that my organization will not have to experience the same failure. Every mistake I make becomes a success for everyone that is willing to learn from me. Every failure becomes a tool to strengthen myself and everyone else.
Next time you fail, remember that you have been handed a gift. If you let the failure rule you, you will die; but if you rule it your gift of failure will create life for everyone, including you. If you can see it, if you can grab on to it, all things can work together for your good. Especially failure.
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