Fail-safe wisdom

“Have you ever experienced failures before, Sir Francis?” goes an innocent question from wide-eyed, semi-hypnotized, perhaps highly-inspired college students interacting with me during the Q&A portion of the seminar.

I smile and reply politely. “Of course I have,” while in my mind raced thoughts like, “Are you kidding? Ask my wife and she’s got tons of stories to tell!”

I’ve read countless books and biographies, and I’ve realized that successful people today are successful because they have experienced lots and lots of failures before.

Here’s a collection of quotes on failures:

“Fail. Forward. Fast.” – High-tech exec, Valley Forge, PA

“Fail faster. Succeed sooner.” – David Kelley, founder IDEO

“Fail. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett, Nobel laureate, Literature

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins – title of a book by Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes

“Sam was not afraid to fail.” – David Glass, former CEO of Walmart, on Walmart founder Sam Walton’s most significant success trait

“If people…tell me they skied all day and never fell down, I tell them to try a different mountain.” – Michael Bloomberg (I like this one.)

And a lot of speakers, trainers and even preachers today have used this quote from a basketball legend: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six 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.” The basketball legend? Michael Jordan.

I find fascinating Tom Peter’s beautiful observation on a famous company, a company my youngest daughter dreams of joining once she graduates in multi-media arts. Listen carefully to his words:

“One of the curious aspects of Pixar’s story is that each of the leaders was, by conventional standards, a failure at the time he came onto the scene. [Animator-superstar, John] Lasseter landed his dream job at Disney out of college – and had just been fired from it. [Tech genius and founding President Ed] Catmull had done well-respected work as a graduate student in computer graphics, but had been turned down for a teaching position and ended up in what he felt was a dead-end software development job. Alvy Ray Smith, the company’s co­-founder, had checked out of academia, got work at Xerox’s famous Palo Alto Research Center, and then abruptly found himself on the street. [Steve] Jobs had endured humiliation and pain as he was rejected from Apple Computer; overnight he had transformed from boy wonder of Silicon Valley to a roundly ridiculed has-been.”

Maybe these legends were hungry. Maybe they were angry. But the fact remains that these people who have experienced failures before never allowed their past negative experiences to hinder them from achieving future successes.

Business is always seasonal. Business is always cyclical. Maybe you’ve lost your job. Maybe your business has folded. Maybe you’re far from your targets. But yesterday ended last night, and today is a brand new beginning. Learn from the experience and don’t give up the fight!

Giving up is easier but nothing easy gives you honor and glory.

Welcome adversity, and allow it to work on your character so that you may be prepared to face greater challenges and achieve greater things for God’s glory.

(Develop your leadership skills with Francis Kong this May 4-5 at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. Call Pam or Krisselle of Inspire Leadership Consultancy Inc. at 632-6872614 or 09178511115 for further details.)