Business is about success, right? Success this, success that, every business that wants to work with you talks about their success, how they’ve made others successful, how you’ll be successful if you work with them. When you sell your product or service part of the pitch is success one way or another. “We’ve been in business for many years.” “We’ve served X number of happy customers.” “We have this award, that ranking with the BBB.” And it goes on. And that’s fine, we talk a lot about shifting the pitch toward what that means to the customer, we’ve covered why being “The #1 car dealership in whatever city” is less powerful than a good price on a sexy car. But it’s everywhere anyway, and is often the focal point of marketing. Success can build trust. It’s good background once you’ve broken through the recognition barrier and the affinity barrier to making a sale.
But rooting for the underdog is a powerful thing in the American psyche. It’s part of who we are. We root for the Cinderella team in the NCAA Tournament, we want the awkward guy to get the girl in the movies. We like it when great odds are overcome despite overwhelming adversity. It inspires us.
All of that is just to say that failure is not something to be afraid of, and as a business owner you probably already know that you are going to fail more often than succeed, but the success makes it worth it. Here are some famous examples of failures by some of the most successful people in recent history, and the moral is that failing didn’t stop any of them.
Abraham Lincoln
Lost his wife, suffered from depression, and lost 8 elections before becoming what is considered by most historians the most successful president in history.
Michael Jordan
He was cut from his High School basketball team. Nike also made a very successful commercial based on his failures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA7G7AV-LT8
Thomas Edison
To a young reporter who asked if he felt like a failure after 9,000 attempts at the light bulb had failed, “Young man, why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is in my grasp.” He got it right on about the 10,000th attempt.
Albert Einstein
He couldn’t speak until he was four and his teachers said he’d never amount to much.
The list goes on and on. Oprah Winfrey was fired as a news anchor, Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for “Lack of imagination and no good ideas,” Lionel Messi is 4 Time FIFA player of the year and was cut from his soccer team at 11, Steve Jobs was fired at age 30 and spiraled into depression before founding Apple and Pixar, Eminem has won 13 Grammy’s and sold 90 Million records, but tried to kill himself in High School due to depression and drugs, a teacher told Thomas Edison he was “Too stupid to learn anything,” the Beatles were rejected by Decca Recording Studios because, “We don’t like their sound, they have no future in show business,” Dr. Seuss’ first book was rejected by 27 publishers.
The fact is nearly every single business and individual to ever become truly successful, first failed a whole lot, probably failed more than most would be willing to put up with, and as has been said before, that is why they succeed. They keep trying.