“Failure Breeds Success – If You Learn From Each Failure”
“Failure Breeds Success – If You Learn From Each Failure”
By: J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Founder & Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group ™
Many readers of this article may ask how failure breeds success? Others will ask, “Doesn’t failure breed more failure, a sense of loss, or a loser mentality?” And I welcome the inquiry and the chance to respond because I believe there is more to learn in our failures than in our successes. In my opinion, there is a lesson to learn in each failure we experience.
Did you know that Thomas A. Edison discovered 1,500 ways NOT to make an electric light bulb? Do you remember some local politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln, who lost several state elections before being elected President? And what about Michael Jordan, who was cut from his high school varsity basketball team his sophomore year? These are some real life examples that the true measure of a person is not that you fail at an endeavor, but what you do after that failure.
As I reflect back over my professional career that began in 1970 and my years in private consulting practices as a business consultant since 1982, I see real confirmation in the belief that life’s blunders teach us lessons and how to recover. And being willing to fail can provide real benefits to your business. You may recall a famous quote from IBM’s Thomas Watson, Sr., “The fastest way to success is to double your failure rate.” Or another quote from Rob Goldberg, CEO of Plump Jack, “People who don’t fail on a daily basis are not innovating, and my guess is their businesses are not growing that fast.” This seems to be just the opposite of more prevalent conventional thinking in business today.
In my consulting and coaching work, I urge clients to look for positive things even when disastrous things occur. I ask them to identify the lesson(s) learned from the failure and to point out the value gained from the risks taken. Yes, failures happen every day and it does hurt. My observation is that just when you are feeling at your lowest, that is the time to remind yourself that life and business lessons are usually learned from a view at the bottom. It will take courage to understand why you failed and also some solid thinking to make sure the same failure does not happen again.
Although nobody wants to be a failure, it can be said that there's no better education for an entrepreneur than failure. Even people who go to the most elite business schools in the world do not get their real education there. What they get there is the opportunity to build relationships. Going through an entrepreneurial startup is what teaches you to have whatever it takes to get through whatever you need to go through to build a business.
What lessons are learned by failure? Here are a few.
+ How costly it is if you take yourself out of the business. If you fail, you have to bounce back.??
+ If you fail once, you need to get back up and try again. Unfortunately, human beings tend to take something from the past, try it and see it did not work, and then start believing their chance of success is greatly diminished.
+ The biggest hurdle to bouncing back from failure is self-doubt. The biggest hurdles for success are internal and ones we create.
+ When experiencing failure, remember why you started your business, because your passion for your business and its success will help see you through failure.
+ Failure does not automatically mean you must or should close your business. You will have setbacks and the challenge will be to get beyond those situations.
Learning how failures can be transformed into success is very valuable. If you would like to gain that valuable resource, please contact Glenn Ebersole through his web site at: www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at: jgecoach@aol.com
Failure Breeds Success If You Learn From Each Failure - To learn more about this author, visit Glenn Ebersole's Website.
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“Failure Breeds Success – If You Learn From Each Failure”
By: J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Founder & Chief Executive of J. G. Ebersole Associates and The Renaissance Group ™
Many readers of this article may ask how failure breeds success? Others will ask, “Doesn’t failure breed more failure, a sense of loss, or a loser mentality?” And I welcome the inquiry and the chance to respond because I believe there is more to learn in our failures than in our successes. In my opinion, there is a lesson to learn in each failure we experience.
Did you know that Thomas A. Edison discovered 1,500 ways NOT to make an electric light bulb? Do you remember some local politician by the name of Abraham Lincoln, who lost several state elections before being elected President? And what about Michael Jordan, who was cut from his high school varsity basketball team his sophomore year? These are some real life examples that the true measure of a person is not that you fail at an endeavor, but what you do after that failure.
As I reflect back over my professional career that began in 1970 and my years in private consulting practices as a business consultant since 1982, I see real confirmation in the belief that life’s blunders teach us lessons and how to recover. And being willing to fail can provide real benefits to your business. You may recall a famous quote from IBM’s Thomas Watson, Sr., “The fastest way to success is to double your failure rate.” Or another quote from Rob Goldberg, CEO of Plump Jack, “People who don’t fail on a daily basis are not innovating, and my guess is their businesses are not growing that fast.” This seems to be just the opposite of more prevalent conventional thinking in business today.
In my consulting and coaching work, I urge clients to look for positive things even when disastrous things occur. I ask them to identify the lesson(s) learned from the failure and to point out the value gained from the risks taken. Yes, failures happen every day and it does hurt. My observation is that just when you are feeling at your lowest, that is the time to remind yourself that life and business lessons are usually learned from a view at the bottom. It will take courage to understand why you failed and also some solid thinking to make sure the same failure does not happen again.
Although nobody wants to be a failure, it can be said that there's no better education for an entrepreneur than failure. Even people who go to the most elite business schools in the world do not get their real education there. What they get there is the opportunity to build relationships. Going through an entrepreneurial startup is what teaches you to have whatever it takes to get through whatever you need to go through to build a business.
What lessons are learned by failure? Here are a few.
+ How costly it is if you take yourself out of the business. If you fail, you have to bounce back.??
+ If you fail once, you need to get back up and try again. Unfortunately, human beings tend to take something from the past, try it and see it did not work, and then start believing their chance of success is greatly diminished.
+ The biggest hurdle to bouncing back from failure is self-doubt. The biggest hurdles for success are internal and ones we create.
+ When experiencing failure, remember why you started your business, because your passion for your business and its success will help see you through failure.
+ Failure does not automatically mean you must or should close your business. You will have setbacks and the challenge will be to get beyond those situations.
Learning how failures can be transformed into success is very valuable. If you would like to gain that valuable resource, please contact Glenn Ebersole through his web site at: www.businesscoach4u.com or by email at: jgecoach@aol.com
Failure Breeds Success If You Learn From Each Failure - To learn more about this author, visit Glenn Ebersole's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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