Tweet

Welcome In Failure!

Guest post by: Jackie Mckay

Article Overview: What if I told you that only you have the power to decide whether or not something is indeed, a failure? In fact, there are some individual's highly successful people who believe the very word failure has no place in our vocabulary.

Welcome In Failure!

There is no such thing as failure When you read the quote above, what is your reaction? Do you think it's untrue? Silly glass-half-empty stuff?

What if I told you that only you have the power to decide whether or not something is indeed, a failure? In fact, there are some individual's highly successful people who believe the very word failure has no place in our vocabulary.

Let's talk about why.

Opposite Day

As a kid, you probably played that game opposite day. You'd play practical jokes on your family and friends and release some passive aggression in the process of claiming opposite day. It was great you could call the cutest boy in the class ugly, and then take it all back by simply exclaiming opposite day!

But, the end result is the same; you still would have acknowledged his cuteness. Well, let's play the game.

What if today, failure really means success? How can you acknowledge your success, even as you utter the word failure? Well, you can point out:

1. everything that was learned in the process of getting to where you are now surely not everything goes to the scrap heap
2. that simply being able to recognize everything has not gone according to plan, or achieved the desired outcome (i.e. failed), is in itself a positive outcome
3. that the specific path you took this go round, clearly wasn't the right one and so it has successfully been eliminated and will not be repeated
4. that you'll know to do things differently in the future
5. that the experience has enabled you to grow in some way

"Failure" is feedback.

Failure can simply be a great way to get you to pause in the midst of your process, and get some critical information to indicate that you may need to change direction, try something new, continue your learning, or shift your focus.

Imagine what would happen if you didn't get that feedback, and continued endlessly along the wrong path, toward the wrong goal, or without ever learning a new approach?

The thought is pretty scary, isn't it?

Failure then can really be seen as positive feedback - information that gets us back on the right track! For, without it, we would surely be lost.

The key is to identify it quickly, and change direction, try something new, or shift our focus.

Here are some tips:

• Always have a clear idea of where you want to go and continue to re-evaluate it as you move forward
• Identify specific milestones or markers along the way, to let you know you're on the right track and celebrate each success
• If something doesn't appear to be working, or working fast enough, don't hesitate to try something new
• Continually learn from others with whom you work, seek out experts, find others who may have traveled down a similar road before

And always remember:

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down

You NEVER fail until you stop trying

If you are not making any mistakes, you're not really doing anything with your life

You're Success Assignment

My wish for you today is that you fail as many times as possible and know that you are NOT BEING A FAILURE while you do so. Instead you will have cultivated much courage and commitment to living a fulfilled life and exploring new, rich experiences. Now go and practice failing and then, take a bow - Ta-dah!

Related Articles
  Do You Think You Are a Failure, When Failure Comes Knocking At Your Door?
  Small Business Owners - How To Overcome Fear Of Failure?
  Learning From Failure
  Fear Free Selling
  It's Better to Fail Quickly
  Failure or Feedback You choose
  The Gravity of Failure
  Expatriate Selection – The $1 Million Man (or Woman)
  Failure and Risk
  Question of the Day: What will you do with your failure?
  Lesson #1: Smart Companies Encourage Smart Failures
  Fail to Succeed
  The Truth About Failure
  Do You Avoid Failure Like the Plague?
  Leadership = Accepting Failures
  What’s the Real Key to Success? It’s Failure
  5 Secrets of Turning Failure Into Success
  What you can learn from a lousy teacher...
  The Magic of Thinking Big: Developing the Power of Belief
  Consultative Selling Addresses the Need Buyers Never Admit

Article Tags: commitment, courage, failure, life, vocabulary



Related Forum Posts
Why A Project Fails? - Hello Everyone As the size and complexity of ones business grows, so does their need to effectively manage projects. I have been thinking about the major reasons why a project can go wrong and my limited experience comes up with the following. 1 Leadership: A project manager with leadership skills and not just management skills. 2 Failure to (Foresee and) Plan 3 Failure to Manage: Ineffective change management control methods. Unclear decision making guidelines. 4 Talent: Finding, allocating and developing people 5 Scope: Setting an overly ambitious or amibigious project scope 6 Alignment: When projects are not prioritized in alignment with the business strategy, or project members personal objectives are not in tandem with that of the project / company 7 Lack of Candor: Communication Breakdowns I would be interested in knowing everyone's thoughts on this, especially on ways to overcome the above mentioned obstacles. Cheers!
Top performing Franchise Loans - Evan, There are over 120 Franchises listed by the SBA with 0% Loan Failure from 10-1-00 to 9-30-05 these companies have at leat 10 loans disbursed. A number of the companies are Hotel/Motel Franchises so I listed them separately. Since all the ones listed have 0% loan failure I listed them descending by # of loans disbursed. Top 20 (by # loans Disbursed) 0% SBA Loan Failure (does not include hotels/motels) 1 21425--CULVER'S FROZEN CUSTARD 85 2 66910--PRIMROSE SCHOOL (DAYCARE) 76 3 14467--CARTRIDGE WORLD STORES 54 4 68021--QUIZNO'S SUBS 41 5 06560--AUNTIE ANN'S (SOFT PRETZELS) 40 6 29912--FIREHOUSE SUBS 35 7 31154--FOOT SOLUTIONS 35 8 52707--MEDICAP PHARMACY 35 9 09802--BEN & JERRY'S ICE CREAM 33 10 67759--COMFORT SUITES 33 11 70150--RITTER'S FROZEN CUSTARD 32 12 05650--ARBY'S 31 13 65160--PLATO'S CLOSET 31 14 67417--PUMP IT UP 30 15 69149--REMAX 30 16 71456--SALAD WORKS, INC. 30 17 76282--SONIC DRIVE-IN 27 18 84725--UNION 76 OIL 27 19 17049--CHRISTIAN BROTHERS AUTOMOTIVE 26 20 78950--SUNOCO SERVICE STATION 26 Top 10 0% SBA Loan Failure Hotel/Motels 1 10275--BEST WESTERN INN 104 2 67750--COMFORT INN 98 3 38605--HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS 87 4 36680--HAMPTON INNS 57 5 53165--MICROTEL 33 6 75385--SLEEP INN MOTEL 26 7 04160--AMERIHOST INN 18 8 69134--RED ROOF INN 13 9 17230--CLARION INN & SUITES 11 10 20715--COUNTRY INN 11
These maybe the coldest franchises out there: - Here are the worst 15 performing franchises in regards to having the highest Small Business Administration (SBA) loan failure rates. The list is dotted with sub sandwich shops, fitness centers and car shops. WORST FRANCHISE LOAN FAILURES Failure % 1 OBEE'S SOUP SALAD SUBS 55.56% 2 LADY OF AMERICA 41.94% 3 COUNTRY CLUTTER (BED & BREAKFAST) 41.18% 4 COPY CLUB 36.36% 5 ALL TUNE AND LUBE 35.71% 6 PICKERMAN'S 35.71% 7 PHILLY CONNECTION 35.59% 8 ROLY POLY ROLLED SANDWICHES 34.78% 9 COTTMAN TRANSMISSION 34.48% 10 HAIR COLOR EXPRESS 33.33% 11 LEE MYLES AUTOMOTIVE TRANSMISSIONS 33.33% 12 GODFATHER'S PIZZA 33.33% 13 SMOOTHIE FACTORY 33.33% 14 BLIMPIE 31.39% 15 GOLF U.S.A. (RETAIL GOLF EQUIP.) 30.77% Source: Small Business Administration, SBA Loan Performance Within Franchise Code for the Period of FY 2001 - 2005


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

B2B PR – Planning for Success

Executive Blind Spots

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.