Failure
is a loaded word. When most people think
of failure, they think of loss, things not accomplished, unfulfilled potential,
or not achieving a goal. That outlook may
be getting in the way of people realizing their dreams. Failing forward is a concept
that encourages everyone to seek success in the face of adversity, to look for
the upside when we fall down, and to turn failure into positive feedback. Here
are a few examples to illustrate the point
At
age 22, a young reporter was fired from her job co-anchoring the 6pm Baltimore nightly
news after her program received low ratings. Told that she was "unfit for TV," she
was demoted, and she later called the experience "the first and worst
failure of her TV career.” That reporter
was future talk show and lifestyle mogul Oprah Winfrey.
Timothy
Ferris was an unknown author working in the nutritional supplement world, and received
25 rejections while trying to find a publisher for his first book. When the 26th publisher finally
took a chance on it, his book, The 4-Hour
Workweek, reached #1 on both the New York Times bestseller list and the
Wall Street Journal bestseller list.
When
singer Stefani Germanotta signed a record deal with the Def Jam label to
release her debut album, she thought she’d made it as a musician. But the label dropped her just three months
later, before the album was even released, leaving her devastated. Nevertheless, within a few short years,
Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, was a household name, being selected as one
of the world's most influential people by Time Magazine.
Here’s
a less famous example: My brother
founded and operated a record label right after he finished college. During that time, he also started a band,
serving as the lead singer. He loved
both his job and singing in his band, and was certain he was doing what he was meant
to be doing with his life. He had no
other plans for his future, because he was sure that his life and career would
have something to do with music. One way
or the other, he was confident that either his record label or his band would be his future.
Well,
after ten years, he still enjoyed his work, but the changing industry and declining
album sales persuaded him to sell the company.
And his band, as many bands do, eventually broke up due to the different
ideas and personalities of its members.
Abruptly, my brother’s certainty about his future was shattered. He was no longer in the music business.
My
brother turns 40 on Friday, and if you ask if he considers running his label or
singing in his band to have been failures, he’ll answer with an emphatic “No!” He spent ten years putting out records from
some of his favorite artists and getting them heard around the world. He performed onstage for thousands of people
in cities throughout Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Belgium, and the U.K., opening
for one of his all-time favorite groups.
He learned what it takes to launch and run a business, and got the
chance to make music that he still takes a huge amount of pride in. The only failure would be if he wasn’t
grateful for those experiences, or if he’d learned nothing from them that he
could put to use in his life.
For
many people, failure is a sign that they shouldn’t have tried, and so they
don’t want to try again. But just because
so many people are sidelined by failure doesn’t mean it has to be that way for you.
Failure
is your chance to learn and grow, to understand what works and what doesn’t,
all so you can integrate it into your strategy for whatever you attempt
next. As long as you see failure as a
roadblock to success, it’s almost certain to be one. But the happiest, most successful people in
the world think of their crushing moments of failure as the times when they
figured out exactly what they needed to do in order to reach their goals.
Michael
Jordan once said, “I've missed more
than 9000 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.”
It’s
up to you to decide: are you getting enough out of your failures? Are you failing forward? Happy Birthday to my brother Jadd! Hope this weekly story is a gift that everyone
can find value in.
Until
next week…
Live
Your Dreams,
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