Why Good Failures are Acceptable Options
No, this isn’t the ranting of a nearly over-the-hill sales professional who has finally flipped out! Good Failures are errors I have made which have taught me important life and business lessons.
Not surprisingly, the most expensive financial errors were the most memorable and sometimes painful to my wounded wallet and damaged ego.
While none of us intentionally seek failure, especially in our success-centric, society; I have become a believer in one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s most famous quotation:
“Whatever doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”
Am I rationalizing? You bet! I accept my failures as ‘grist for the mill’ in the words of my high school Latin Teacher, John Bell, as long as the price wasn’t too stressful. To me, failure is an acceptable option!
I’m in good company as I look at some of history’s most famous failures. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie, John H. Patterson Walt Disney, and Thomas Watson, Jr. Watson was fired by NCR (National Cash Register Company), my first employer. He moved on to found IBM so, he learned well from his failures. Now, that’s a happy ending!
Good Failures can be wonderful learning landmarks, provided we don’t give up; repeat our failures, or become cynical during our failing process.
While I have lost count of my failures, I have recited several during paid speaking engagements. Audiences love to hear a speaker brandish self-deprecating humor provided it is relevant to the presentation. Humor is an excellent tool for anchoring a message and for bonding the speaker with the audience. WOW, this guy isn’t too big to admit his goofs!
Good Failures’ greatest lessons are dissected and thoroughly analyzed because they reveal what behaviors to avoid and when to avoid them.
Failing forward is the mindset of an optimist, who upon gleaning the lessons of one’s own failure and taking personal responsibility builds upon the lesson and attempts to succeed until success and the ‘aha moment’ are achieved, and with it, the ultimate satisfaction of accomplishment.
In November 1967, after 9 months of cold calling every hotel and motel from South Beach to Golden Beach, and only closing 3 sales while employed as an NCR accounting machine salesman in the Miami Beach sales territory; I learned a formula for systematically gaining access to Hospitality Industry decision makers which I named the: the Power Prospecting™ Formula. Little did I realize the significance of my ‘aha moment’.
Teaching others to apply this formula would one day become the focal point of my life. It would give my life purpose. Between 1967 and 1983, I repeatedly applied improved versions of this Power Prospecting™ formula and I moved from being an employee to an entrepreneur, several times with good failures, successes and compensation to match.
Yes, good failures have become a way of life for me as acceptable options.
The positive learning experiences and the confidence gained from prior failures which lead to successful outcomes have resulted in achieved goals with financial and personal gains beyond my wildest imagination.
Next week, I’ll share my views of the ‘Twitter Fad’.
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Very interesting website, wish I had found it earlier. This information will definitely come in handy. Fred