When Spanx founder Sara Blakely was growing up, her father would ask her the same question every day after school.
“What did you fail at today?”
Instead of feeling shame or discouragement, Blakely learned to embrace her failures and problem-solve a new way forward. Her father never wanted the fear of failure to stop his daughter from trying. She learned to see her failures as stepping stones to success instead of something to be avoided.
Years later, Blakely faced hundreds of rejections trying to get her brand into department stores. Instead of giving up, she leveraged those failures into building a product known around the world and a brand worth billions of dollars.
If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying, and you miss out on opportunities to learn, grow and innovate.
Failure Speeds up Success
People often think that mistakes and failures will slow them down or derail them on their path to success, and so they avoid them at all costs. In fact, if approached with the right mindset, mistakes can accelerate your learning and get you to your goals faster.
That’s not to say that you should go out and try to make as many mistakes as possible. But you should not let a fear of failure prevent you from trying new things and taking chances. If you are willing to learn from them, your mistakes can be a gift.
The best ice skaters in the world have fallen more than anyone else. Their willingness to take risks and try skills at the edge of their abilities means that they frequently fail but they also learn and progress exponentially faster.
James Dyson built 5,127 failed prototypes before finally creating the world’s first bagless vacuum cleaner. All those mistakes led to a product range that would eventually include hair dryers, hand dryers, vacuums and fans. They are sold in 65 countries around the world and all use the same cyclonic technology. Dyson lived by the mantra “You can never learn from success.”
When companies are successful, they celebrate and they keep doing exactly what they were doing before—innovation is put on hold. When companies fail, they are forced to stop and consider what went wrong. They have to ask hard questions, reevaluate their processes and systems, refine their products and get to know their customers better.
In this process of reflection and refinement, they can create something that is more beautiful, useful and impactful. In short, they become a better company with a better product faster than if everything went smoothly from the beginning.
Challenges as Opportunities
The business world is rich with examples of companies that used challenges as opportunities to innovate and forge a new path to success. One of the most powerful examples is Nintendo.
Nintendo was the titan of the gaming industry in the 1990s. But they failed to appreciate and adapt to rising competition from companies like Sega and Playstation. Nintendo had a successful product and continued to focus on what had worked for them in the past, instead of adapting to consumer demand and innovations in technology. Because of their success they ignored the competition until it was almost too late and their market share plummeted.
The Nintendo Wii gave them a short-term win, but it was the massive failure of the Wii U that forced Nintendo to step back and re-innovate their company. By 2016 and 2017 Nintendo had hit a low point.
But here’s where the magic happened. Nintendo recognized that every failure, challenge, and problem is a gift. They chose to learn from the failures of the Wii U. They listened to their ideal customers, improved their technology, explored new revenue streams from theme-parks, and reconnected with their core purpose of providing fun. The Nintendo Switch became the best-selling gaming console Nintendo ever produced, making the company stronger than ever before.
Nintendo’s success with the Switch was only possible because they used the period of failure after the Wii U to correct problems they had been ignoring for years. Their struggles were catalysts for change and growth.
The past does not equal your future unless you live there. Every failure in the past can be the driving force for future success as long as you are willing to learn and adapt.
Consistent Practice Yields Results
Anybody you see who is massively successful—artists, musicians, business leaders, investors, athletes, politicians—has been failing more than anyone else. That’s because they have been working and trying more than anyone else.
Steph Curry is a legendary basketball player because he takes 500 shots a day, every day. You can bet that he has missed thousands of shots over his career, but through consistent dedication he has become the greatest three point shooter of all time.
You are rewarded in public for what you consistently practice in private.
The more you practice, the more you fail, the quicker you learn.
Creativity and innovation are blocked by trying to be perfect. Fear of failure will prevent you from the growth you are capable of. Allow yourself to take chances and make mistakes. Be prepared to learn from those mistakes, and your failures will become your greatest gifts.
Business coaching and mentoring can help you to identify your weaknesses and also understand your strengths. With the help of business coaching services, you can turn your problems into opportunities and be prepared to weather any economic challenge.
