Your Relationship With Failure
Your Relationship With Failure Is Critical To Your Success.
I am
British, and in our culture we have an ingrained fear of failure, it is something that is looked down upon and despised.
Over
the course of my business career I have enjoyed a certain amount of
success, but I have also endured a considerable amount of failure - or deferred success as I prefer to see it.
Some
years ago I was being mentored by a man who had achieved considerable
business and financial success in the oil business - he had closed 9
major fuel contracts and made millions.
I recall once having a conversation one day when I asked him what he thought was the key to his success.
He told me something that has stayed with me through every failure I have experienced since then. He said:
"Stephen, one of the key things that has contributed to my success is
that I am prepared to fail more times than everyone else in this line
business."
The Story Of Walt Disney's Spectacular Failure
The following story was part of an article written by personal development blogger Steve Pavlina who is someone whose work I have considerable respect for, and it is republished here with consent.
*******************
July 17, 1955 was the grand opening of Disneyland.
It was restricted attendance press preview day, and it was a spectacular failure.
Here are some of the things that happened that day:
- Gate Crashers - Disney was expecting 11,000 guests but 28,000 people showed up. Some wise-guy sold thousands of counterfeit tickets, and another fixed up a ladder in the back of the park and charged people $5 to creep in that way.
- Horrendous Traffic - So many people tried to reach Disneyland that it caused a 7-mile tail back on the Santa Ana Freeway.
- The Asphalt Melted And Women's Shoes Stuck To It - It was a very hot day at 100 degrees (38 C), so hot it melted the fresh asphalt on Main Street into a sticky tar that ensnared women’s high-heeled shoes.
- Guests Got Wet Paint On Their Clothes - Some paint on the attractions wasn’t fully dry, and people were getting it on their clothes.
- They Ran Out Of Food - Because the crowds were so large the food stalls and restaurants ran out of food by lunchtime.
- They Didn't Have Enough Drinking Water Fountains - A plumbers' strike pre-opening delayed the installation of sufficient fountains.
- The Rides Kept Breaking Down - Because of the heat and the unexpectedly large crowds, many of the rides broke down multiple times.
- The Riverboat Nearly Sank - The Mark Twain riverboat was so overloaded with guests that it ran
low in the water, and nearly sank.
The park press had a field day and trashed the park in their reviews, referring to it as Black Sunday.
After that disastrous opening Disneyland still had more teething problems in the first few weeks. But they increasingly got a lot of things right as they fixed the problems.
It became a work in progress.
This story is a powerful metaphor for our lives too.
Imagine being Walt Disney on Disneyland’s grand opening day:
- Tons of press are there.
- The park bears your name.
- It’s been a 20-year journey to evolve your vision for a theme park into a reality.
- You’ve struggled endlessly just to get the financing in place, and then there were even more struggles to get the place designed and built.
- So many people have doubted you, including your brother and business partner Roy.
- You’ve been preparing for and anticipating this glorious day for a long time.
- And then some asshole screws up your plans by making thousands of counterfeit tickets, and your people can’t tell the real tickets from the fake ones.
- Your plans for a wonderful opening start falling
apart right before your eyes, and all the attention and the cameras are
on you – not to mention all the investors who want to know whether
investing in your vision was a good idea.
How To Overcome Fear Of Failure
Failures happen, it's is a part of life:
- While other people may make a huge deal out of it, is it really that big of a deal?
- You needn’t retreat and slink away in shame.
- Be proud that you failed.
- So many people are too cowardly to even try working on something meaningful.
- They talk themselves out of pursuing bold ideas before they begin.
- They treat the prospect of failure as a reason to quit before they start.
Many of Walt Disney’s ideas had to be scrapped and replaced.
But the death of a
project doesn’t have to kill the big picture vision.
You can fail a lot with your projects, but your big
picture goal can remain intact and achievable.
Some ideas and projects along the way will be dead ends, and you’ll have to let them go.
Don’t equate the failure of your projects with the death of your long-term goal.
It will happen. You’ll rack up plenty of failures if you do anything interesting in life.
Let each failure be a badge of honour.
Next Article: Boredom - Your Greatest Threat to Results
Return from "Failure" to: Walking The Talk
Contact me
LATEST ARTICLES
-
Going With The Flow - The Balance Of Being And Doing
Steer The Boat Each Day Rather Than Plan Ahead Way Into The Future. Going with the flow is about learning to become comfortable with uncertainty, and learning how to exploit the potential hidden withi… -
8 Principles For Success
A Timeless Foundation On Which To Build Your Success. There are Universal laws and processes that work to support us and guarantee that we achieve all our goals. But first we need to know what they ar… -
The Loving Father
A Love That Will Not Let You Go. I had a loving father. I knew that I did, but I never felt it. My father was a good man but very damaged and unable to show his feelings. So I grew up knowing in my he… -
Your Ebenezer Stone Of Help
How To Stay Connected To Your True Source Of Power. Approximately 2,500 years ago the Israeli town of Kafr Qasim was close to the site of two battles between the ancient Israelis and their neighbours… -
The Stockdale Paradox
How To Deal With The Attrition Factor. The Stockdale Paradox is named after the late James Stockdale, former vice presidential candidate, naval commander and prisoner of war during the American-Vietna… -
Embrace Your Fear Of Failure And Uncertainty
We Celebrate Success And Ignore Failure. Numerous studies have been undertaken on successful people to understand what it was that they did to become so successful, how they did it and when they did i… -
The Wilderness Years - 3 Keys To An Exit
How You Got Into The Wilderness Matters Less Than The Lessons To Be Learnt There. The wilderness years can be described as any lengthy time, longer than a year, that is spend aimlessly; without an imm… -
Boredom – Your Greatest Threat to Results
We Live In A World That Glorifies The Results And Not The Process. We all know what we should be doing, but the trouble with that is that sooner of later we get bored. The enjoyment fades, the excitem… -
The Luck Factor - 4 Basic Principles
You Can Master The Art of Creating Your Own Luck By Mastering 4 Key Principles "The Luck Factor" is the title of a book published 20 years ago based on the research of Professor Richard Wiseman who fo… -
Your Relationship With Failure Is Critical To Your Success
Just Because You Have A Spectacular Failure Doesn’t Mean The Game Is Over. The thought that you could fail can really slow you down. But the problem is not the failure, the problem is your relationshi… -
Lost, Stuck & Going Round In Circles?
Are You Lost In Transition? To be in an alien North African city, late in the evening, in the dark, completely lost in transition from the main market square back to the obscure location of our Riad… -
Seeing Is Believing Or Is It?
Do You Believe What You See Or Do You See What You Believe? Like the characters in "The Matrix" we are fooled by the illusion that what we see is how things really are. Why? Because this is the mind's… -
What Difference Did You Make?
What Impact Will You Leave In The Lives Of Others? If you knew you were going to die tonight and you were given a few minutes to reflect before that happened, what would you say was the meaning of yo… -
Compassion Is Selfish And You Need It
If You Want Others To Be Happy, Practice Compassion. If You Want To Be Happy, Practice Compassion. Compassion is derived from the Latin words "com pati" meaning to suffer with. It has been defined as… -
The Placebo Effect - 2 Key Takeaways
The Power Of Expectation Of An Outcome Regardless Of The Lack Of Any Substance To That Expectation. Traditionally, the placebo effect occurs when false, or dummy, treatments of inert substances [that… -
The Red Pill
This Is What Will Happen After You Take It.
"This is your last chance," rebel leader Morpheus tells Neo, holding a coloured pill in each hand. “You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in y… -
Transformational Life Hacks
This Has To Be One Of The Best Ways For Living The Best Life You Can Possibly Live. An online search on life hacks will invariably provide you with multiple links to ways of increasing your productivi… -
This Too Shall Pass
The Blessing And The Curse Of Impermanence. There is a story of a king who sought wisdom. Eventually he heard of a man living in a remote part of the kingdom who had a reputation for great wisdom. The… -
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
The Stories That We Tell Ourselves Are A Matter Of Choice. The stories we tell ourselves form the backcloth and the tapestry of our lives. These narratives shape and define our sense of self and how a… -
Who Do You Trust?
Trust Is A Choice And It Creates Your Reality. Nothing in life is permanent and nothing lasts forever. Every relationship ends in tears. Somebody leaves or somebody dies. This is how things are. This… -
How Positive Asymmetry Can Transform Your Life
Finding This Hidden Value Is The Key To A Huge Upside. Most of us spend our lives working to linear rules where there is an equal relationship between effort and result. Work hard you get a result. Wo… -
5 Tips For Developing A Growth Mindset
How To Be There When Preparation Meets Opportunity. The growth mindset holds the core belief that your intelligence and personality is something you can develop and that you can expand and grow. The p… -
Lost For Words? Experience Truth
If you can't think of the right thing to say, say nothing.
The concepts we employ, the categorizations we apply and the words we choose and use to articulate a direct experience put us in a double bi… -
Belief - A Terrible Tyrant Or An Empowering Servant
To Believe Or Not To Believe - That Is The Question. Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its beliefs and dogmas. The religious and cultural beliefs that sanction and allow or impose… -
How To Avoid Herd Mentality
How To Stay Far From The Madding Crowd. Herd mentality describes how we make decisions based on what everyone else is thinking and doing. It is also known as a mob or crowd mentality. We follow the he… -
Are You Trying To Teach A Cat To Bark?
We Suffer Every Time We Believe A Thought That Argues With What Is. When your mind is perfectly clear, what is, is what you want. If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try… -
The Value Of Slack
Slack Is The Capacity To Effect Change And The Resource To Deal With The Unexpected. Many organizations are obsessed with efficiency and try to ensure that every resource is fully utilized to its full… -
6 Tips To Help You Stop Trying Too Hard
Less and less do you need to force things, until you arrive at non-action. We are brought up to believe that we get what we want in life as a result of what we do, by the actions that we take, that ha… -
Your Point Of Focus
Is It Helping You Or Hindering You? Your point of focus is the central point of your attention. Your point of focus is a binary choice and the result of that choice is critical to your happiness, your… -
Your Secret For Success
To accomplish any success in life, you must identify accurately what it is that you hunger for, thirst for and long for. The purpose of this article is to look at the foundation of the secret for succ…