Shalom blogren. Its time again to continue on our quest to learn the 9 habits of Millionaires. We are close to the end of our series. Today we look at something particularly difficult for most of us. And that is:
Habit 8: The Ability to turn failure into success
To most of us, failure Is a bad word. Infact, it’s an f-word. We don’t like to fail, so much so that most of us never try to do anything just so we won’t leave any opportunity for that f-word to appear. But this is the greater distinction between us and Millionaires. Most people think that millionaires generally never fail, I mean how else could they be millionaires, right? We’re not millionaires because logically, we’ve failed.
Here’s a truth for you. Millionaires fail a lot more than even you and I. Most millionaires have failed so many times it’s ridiculous. You all heard of Thomas Edison who failed 10,000 times in trying to make a working light bulb. Good grief, I’d have gotten the hint after the 10th time! But millionaires fail more than most of us because they inherently do a lot more, risk a lot more than most of us. The key difference is that millionaires don’t fear failure because they have learned to use it as an ally. Failure to them is simply feedback. It shows them what’s not working and this allows them to change strategy continuously till they eventually succeed.
I don’t know about you, but I’m the kind of person who fails and takes it personally and quits. 3years ago I failed in my first business and guess what I did? Yep, I quit. I didn’t see my failure as feedback that something needed to be changed. Right now, I’m back in the saddle and looking at my past failures trying to understand what I did wrong, correct them this time round and get a better result. Thomas Edison in an interview later responded to a question of how he dealt with such colossal failure, said “I never failed. I simply discovered 10,000 ways not to do it!”
A Chinese proverb says “Madness is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome” That’s how a lot of people deal with failure. They keep doing the same thing over and over hoping that they will achieve a different result. You can’t keep spending all your money by the 2nd week of each month and hope that after one year of this, you will be debt free?!
In becoming the millionaire or successful person you dream of being, be prepared to fail many times before you achieve success. The important thing is to remember that failure is an event, it’s not who you are. Learn from it, change tactics and commit 100% to doing whatever it takes to achieve success and you will be victorious. I know it’s hard. One of the greatest human fears is the fear of failure.
I personally battle fear in many of its different persona’s so this habit is a challenge for me. As an entrepreneur, I can’t help but find myself fearing that I’m going to fail like I did the last time. That I don’t know enough. I’m not stong enough. I remember the ripple effects my failure had and it sometimes stops me in my tracks sometimes. But the grace of the Master helps me to face my fears each day and know that I’ve learned a lot since I was a naïve young man and I should trust that knowledge will see me through. The Rogue king wrote something about failure.
So my millionaire blogren, lets learn how to turn our failures into success. Our next habit is the last and not least of them which is Habit 9: Respect Money
Later
Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. it’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.
It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success
JOHN DEWEY:Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.
Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed.
I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
[…] Habit 8: The Ability to turn Failure Into Success […]
This is really true.
One would never learn how to ride a bike if he is afraid of injuring himself.
If we really want to succeed, we should get back on our feet again, no matter how hard we fall…
Interestingly, children are so good at learning from failure and persisting when they want something. Learning to ride a bike analogy wonderfully brings the essence of this habit to life. Thanks bloggerita.
[…] Habit 8: The Ability to turn Failure into Success […]
This is so true! Also, a thing to remember is that in every failure – there is a window of opportunity that could open the doors of success. It could take a while and patience, hard work does pay off. The most important factor is the mindset. How you take a failure as a challenge and learn out of it to make it work for you – is where you get differentiated from the rest of the crowd!
-Sid
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Yes, every failure is an instalment to victory. Like Thomas Edison, failure gives us an opportunity to learn what does not work.
FAILURE is my BEST FRIEND…it’s funny when I think about it, “I failed my way to SUCCESS!” Go Figure…:-)
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