Failure – or Success?

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” (Samuel Beckett)

Beautiful, truthful and cynical. Perfectly Beckett.

The other side of this enlightened coin reads:

“Life is a successive unfolding of success from failure.”

Think about it. Always before you can do something, there is a period of time in which you cannot do it (or at least haven’t ‘proved’ you can do it). You always can’t do it, first. In fact up until that 3rd, 10th, for 500th time when you succeed – every prior attempt is a failure. (Though hopefully you are, failing better.)

That means: the road to success looks exactly the same as the road to failure. Same obstacles, same pit falls, same road blocks. It’s the same road. Success is just further up the road.

You know what that means? It means successful people fail just as often – if not more – than their unsuccessful counterparts. You’ve probably heard some version of the saying that the most important difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that the successful ones never interpret failure as the final word on the subject. I really like Robert Kiyosaki’s version:

“The fear of losing … is real. Everyone has it. It’s how you handle losing that makes the difference in one’s life. Failure inspires winners and defeats losers. The greatest secret of winners is that failure inspires winning; thus, they’re not afraid of losing.”

Internalizing this message will change your life.