So today we have a special topic, that is how to use failures to succeed in life or work.
You see, failure is a very real part of life. I have not met a single individual who has told me, “Hey, Sean! I have never failed in life.”
And hey, when we’re born we fail to clean up our own diapers—so we already fail the moment we come out.
Everyone fails.
But what differentiates people who are highly successful from people who just get by in life is how we handle failures.
So, how do you and I handle our failures? That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. And I only have a couple of few points for you.
Winston Churchill is the guy who says, “Success is not final and failure is not fatal.” And we’re going to go ahead and dive deeper into what that really means.
First off, being successful is not the end. When you’re successful, guess what? Other people are out there seeing your success and they’re going to be motivated to either get ahead of you, or go after you. This will inevitably take you down a little bit.
But when you’re up there, successful, the tendency is for you to be complacent. You’re likely going to be basking in your success, and think that it’s going to take your competition a good, long while to climb up where you’re currently sitting. You probably think you’re on the safe side.
But, while you’re basking, they’re going to be climbing up that mountain to get right where you’re at—and it can happen before you even know it.
The moment you’re complacent is going to be the start of you having to fail again.
But what, exactly, takes you back to success?
The road to success is paved with failures. And if you’re the kind of person who just never wants to fail, then I want you to know right now that you will find it hard to succeed—because failure is an inevitable part of success.
There are numerous times that I have personally failed in life. I failed 28 units in college. I should have graduated at age 19, but I graduated at 21. And in those two added years of schooling, I didn’t really do so well either, I just hung on by a thread.
So by and large, I consider my academic experience and journey a failure. Who would hire a guy with 28 failing units fresh out of college? Nobody.
But that taught me a lot of things about failure. That failure is not the end.
When I failed in college, I actually got to know a lot of people in the lower batch. I initially had no choice but to meet them and work with them, since most in my batch already graduated.
As shameful as that may sound, that led me to meet some of the best people in my life right now—some of them have even partnered up with me in business and in investments.
You see, I learned from my failure and I didn’t take it personally. The moment that you say, “I am a failure”, is the moment that you’re waving the white flag and you have taken failure to heart.
You don’t need to do that. Instead, you can say, “I have failed.” There’s a huge difference between I’m a failure and I have failed.
So, don’t take failure personally. When you say “I have failed,” you are reframing that moment into something you can learn from. You are making it something outside of you, and that is key to evaluating it properly, and gaining something to move forward.
And, in my opinion, you should only consider something a real failure if you did not learn anything from it. That, to me, is a real failure.
But, if you fail at something and learn something valuable or helpful from it, then I simply consider it to be a learning experience. And the price you paid for it, I always say it’s your tuition fee.
I’ve failed and learnt so many times in tuition fees—but I guess all that has paved the way for some of my good successes today.
Another thing I want to share with you today is that when you fail and evaluate the experience, it creates inspiring stories for others. Doing this may even allow others to succeed—because they’re inspired by you.
That for me is the best value of you learning from your failures. You inspire other people.
Yes, success stories are inspiring. But you know what I realize? Most success stories are littered with failures. That’s how people can relate to the speakers.
Whenever I speak on stage, the redemption moment of my talk is highlighted by the fact that I’ve failed so much, and people can relate to that.
In fact, if I don’t share my failures, I feel like my talk is going to be bland and boring and unreal for a lot of people. And I wouldn’t be the speaker that I am today if I didn’t fail as much.
So when you fail, evaluate the experience, separate yourself from the failure, and make it a learning point not just for yourself, but for other people to be inspired by and learn from it as well.
Something that will be easy for you to remember after reading this post is this: failure presents the opportunity to to turn your setbacks into set ups. Set up yourself for success.
Remember, you are able to do that by separating yourself from the failure. Don’t say, “I am a failure” or “I’m a failure.” Say, “I have failed.” Then learn from that experience. Look at it, evaluate it, see what you can get out of it.
You’ve paid the tuition fee, might as well learn from it and then make sure to share that story with other people so that they can be inspired as well.
