Failures Help Build the Pillars of Success
As an entrepreneur, you aspire to be successful. You have ideas that you want to expand on and build into something great. Whether success means fame and fortune or maybe it means success on a smaller scale, it is important to you, yet defined differently by all.
Richard Branson is one of those successful entrepreneurs having become a well-known billionaire who lives on his own island retreat. He created the “Virgin” brand. Whether it’s Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Money, Virgin Media, Virgin Trains or another of his endless Virgin lines, his brand is seen and recognized by everyone. His success can be used as an inspiration to you, an aspiring entrepreneur, as you work hard to create your own success.
Branson is quoted as saying, “Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” This means that in his experience, success did not always come easy. It was something he had to work for.
In fact, success usually comes with a price. That includes failures, which in the long run, lead you to where you want to be. Even Branson had a number of failures when it came to the Virgin business. As he says in his quote though, he didn’t let it stop him from trying new ideas. He wasn’t embarrassed to try and try again.
Branson failed at creating a drink line, a wedding dress line, fashion line, cosmetics line, a music player, social media website and more. Still, despite all those failures, he remains to be one of the most wildly successful entrepreneurs in the world. His brand remains to be one of the most recognized. When you fail, you might get discouraged in your work or your purpose and your attitude may falter. That may lead you to give up. You may dwell on everything that went wrong and wonder why you should continue.
You can’t let failure get in the way of the multitude of successes you will achieve by pursuing your dream. You may feel like you have hit rock bottom. You just have to get yourself back up and stand on your feet.
Instead of looking at your failure as the absolute bottom, try to view your failure as an elevator. Your goal is to make it to the top floor to reach success, but you’ve made a mistake and you hit the wrong button so you’ve ridden the elevator back down a floor or two. Now is your chance to learn from your mistake, your failure, and choose the right button instead the second time around.
You won’t make the same mistake of pressing the wrong button because you’ve already done that once before and you’ve seen the consequences. If you take the time to consider your failures and learn from your mistakes, you can start to ride the elevator back to the top again -- to your success.
That’s not to say there won’t be many mistakes throughout your lifetime. We are only human, after all. But how else are we going to learn? Take every mistake and look at it as a blessing. Without it, you would never know you did something wrong. Then you can take that mistake and transform it into something positive and advance forward.
Take these other famous entrepreneurs, for example. They have known failure and yet they continued to try. Arianna Huffington was rejected by publishers 37 times and still has the Huffington Post. Bill Gates failed with his first company and yet managed to create Microsoft. Walt Disney was told he lacked creativity and now his work is known by everyone. Milton Hershey had to go through three candy companies before Hershey’s chocolate was a success. The list goes on and on. But today, these entrepreneurs have overcome their failures and made a name for themselves. They continued to try even after they were told that they couldn’t or they faced a failure.
They persisted, and that’s really what matters most. If you strive to be the best entrepreneur that you can be, then you can’t help but succeed.
Most entrepreneurs could tell you that their successes are rooted in failure. Though they didn’t let that stop them from pursuing their dreams and becoming successful because of it. Use their work as an example to yourself. Though failure may be disappointing and a hard lesson to learn, there is still success to be had. Failure is part of success.
About Royce Gomez
Royce Gomez, founder of RoyceTalks, is recognized as a leading authority for coaching and training entrepreneurs and executives. She has been published in the HuffingtonPost, Unlimited Woman, Charity Magazine, and is co-author of The Stories and Daily Habits of Highly Successful Women and international best seller Discover Your Destiny, Live Your Dreams, Love Your Life. She has appeared on Front Porch Radio, Networking Diva Hour, Startup Grind, and has her own podcast, Thrive: A Woman's Journey to Victory. Royce has spoken to audiences ranging from 20-1000+. Her coaching has been a catalyst for companies to experience double digit growth in a short amount of time. She has effectively coached successful business owners who were in transition, both in business and their personal life. Royce effectively helps business owners develop strategies, their personal brand, and marketing initiatives to take their business to the next level of success.