When you stumble on the truth, recognise it! When you stumble on an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. When you meet with failure, use it as a stepping stone to success
"Why do we have failures at all?” someone asked me. “Why did God not create a world in which there was only success – what a wonderful world it would be!”
But when you come to think of it, it is failures that give meaning to success. Wherever you have success, there is bound to be a failure. The two go together. It is the failure that draws out the best that is within us. It is the failure that unfolds, unlocks our hidden powers. In the measure in which we face failures in the right spirit, in that measure that the tremendous power that lies locked up within us is unfolded.
It was Roger Von Oech who said, “Most people think of success and failure as opposites, but they are actually products of the same process.”
It is only when a person bears failures with faith and courage that he gives the best proof of character that anyone can give. Failure has a place in life. It is very necessary. But even as success is not permanent, failure is not permanent.
We must never ever forget that failures are not final. We fail only when we accept failure as final. We must learn to think of failures as stepping-stones to success, not stopping stones.
There was a young man who had become a chain smoker at the age of 20. When he turned 21, he made a firm resolve to give up smoking for good. “I have smoked hundreds of cigarettes,” he said to himself. “Now is the time to give them up.”
On the first morning after his resolve, it was easy going for him. There was no urge to smoke.
The morning passed quickly, but, when he sat down to lunch, he found that his meal was incomplete without a puff. He succumbed to the temptation and had a smoke. This was repeated day after day. Every morning, he made a fresh resolve not to smoke but every afternoon he broke it.
Mark Twain, too, in his writings says: “Smoking is the easiest habit in the world to give up. I ought to know - I have given it up a thousand times!” And so did this young man. But yet he did not give up and accept failure. Every day he reaffirmed to himself: I have not failed, but I have not yet succeeded. Surely, there will come a time when I will give up smoking. His affirmation was one of latent though not realised success. And the day did come when he gave up smoking. Today, even if he moves in the company of chain smokers, he is never tempted.
Never feel that you are a failure. Rather believe that you are on the way to success. Failure occurs only when you accept it as a failure. It was Marshall Foch, the great French Army Chief who said “One is never defeated until one accepts it as such."
Marketing experts tell us again and again: Success is the destination. Failure is how you get there
During the First World War, his country, France, faced many reverses. Everyone thought that France would be defeated but Foch never accepted defeat. He kept on fighting and ultimately attained success.
Someone said to Thomas Alva Edison, the great inventor: “Do you remember Thomas, you failed 24,999 times when you performed those experiments on the storage battery.” Edison replied: “No! I have never failed! I had only discovered 24,999 ways in which the storage battery would not work.”
Years ago a young man approached Tom Watson, the legendary CEO of IBM, asking for advice as to how he might be more successful. Watson responded simply, “Double your failure rate.” The young man walked off and was never heard from again.
As Winston Churchill observed, “People occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
When you stumble on the truth, recognise it! When you stumble on an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. When you meet with failure, use it as a stepping stone to success.
Marketing experts tell us again and again: Success is the destination. Failure is how you get there. Here is what one of them, Richard Fenton, has to say on the subject: “To achieve significant success in today’s world, failure is not just a possibility. It’s a requirement. We must see success and failure for what they truly are.
They’re not opposites, but instead opposite sides of the same coin.”
By Dada JP Vaswani
