Failure: The Sign of A True Winner
Get your fouls! is a great sports analogy for succeeding in business and in life.
Basketball players get the opportunity to commit five fouls before they are removed from the game. Why doesn’t that apply to business as well? We’ve all seen managers push employees to eliminate risk. (It’s the old “no one ever got fired for buying IBM” thing). Companies reward safe behavior. When was the last time you saw a manager push an employee to take a risk, no matter how well thought out? When was the last time you saw a manager congratulate someone for taking a calculated chance that resulted in failure?
The best baseball players can’t even bat .400.
About ten years ago, I read that more than 58% of all self made millionaires in America declared bankruptcy 2 or more times. I doubt that still applies (as it’s easier to become a millionaire now and the bankruptcy laws have been watered down dramatically), but it still shows that the entrepreneurial spirit often produces failure. That’s because entrepreneurs take calculated risks. If you never fail, it’s probably because you’re not taking enough risks.
Of course, if you always fail then you have a different kind of problem.
Take calculated risks; those are the ones that can pay the highest returns. But make sure when you work on a project, that you give it 120% effort. Failure due to lack of effort is not the same as putting your all into something and having it not work. Persevere and you really can be the next great success story.
Posted on April 24th, 2007 by Green Guy
Filed under: Uncategorized