Summary

The article emphasizes the importance of embracing failure as a crucial step towards personal growth and eventual success.

Abstract

The text discusses the value of understanding and embracing failures as a path to success, rather than solely focusing on successful outcomes. It argues that failure is inevitable due to various factors such as a lack of understanding of reality, changing structures, the necessity of learning from mistakes, the historical example of nations growing from defeat, and the common tendency for people to give up too soon. The article highlights the experiences of individuals like Thomas Edison and Colonel Sanders, who achieved success after numerous failures. It also touches on the importance of persistence, the learning curve, and the role of decision-making boldness in the face of fear. The author suggests that failure is a natural process that teaches valuable lessons and is essential for development, innovation, and achieving one's goals.

Opinions

The author believes that experience, including failure, is essential for valuing success and that it is impossible to completely avoid failure in life.
It is suggested that a full understanding of reality is often lacking, which contributes to failures, as seen in the example of online business ventures.
The article posits that structural changes in the world necessitate adaptation and acceptance of failure as part of growth, using the Medium platform's algorithm changes as an example.
The author asserts that without failures, there would be little invention or progress, citing historical figures like Thomas Edison and Colonel Sanders.
The value of failure is also applied to nations, with Germany and Japan's post-World War II recoveries serving as examples of countries that became stronger after defeat.
The author criticizes Britain for not learning from its past colonial atrocities due to its denial and arrogance.
The article emphasizes that most people quit before seeing the results of their efforts, and that persistence is key to success, as demonstrated by the learning curve theory.
Talent is acknowledged as useful, but the author insists that success requires hard work and relentless effort beyond mere talent.
The author highlights the importance of bold decision-making and warns that fear can lead to inaction and stagnation.
The takeaway is that failure is a natural and necessary process for learning and that small businesses can succeed if their owners are willing to learn from their failures.

Personal Growth/Life Lesson

The Value Of Embracing Failures

Instead of just focussing on what it takes to be successful, we should rather examine what hinders our success.

There is a general belief that we can always prevent failures in our lives by being careful or protecting ourselves, or by arming ourselves with the right information and knowledge. This can be true only to some extent. Apart from mitigating losses through insurance covers, we are bound to fail in one area or another of our lives.

British Economist, Tim Hartford, said, in his book, ‘’Adapt, why success always starts with failure’’ experience counts in limiting failures, nevertheless, the experience helps in valuing success when it shows up. Let us look at the reasons for failures.

Five Reasons Why Failure Is Inevitable

1. Inability To Fully Understand The Reality On Ground

This is evidenced by those who rush to sign up and pay for most online businesses. While I agree that the promoters deliberately hide the truth of the reality, those who sign up also do not fully understand the reality. For instance, we often see the advert, ‘’make as much as $10,000 writing in your first month on Medium.’’

And pronto, we jump into it, after all, we are already a writer on Medium, taking the course will just reveal the strategies to make more money. We jumped into it, before the reality dawns on us that it is not as easy as the coach makes it to be. That does not however prevent us from making the success of the platform, but we must pay our price of failures and rejections, before cracking the code of success.

In Relationships, for instance, we are different individuals, that have come together in this relationship. It can either business, personal, or even in a casual relationship. Here we are, as individual as we are, trying to make things work out. We might have the same goal in mind, but the route/way of achieving might not be the same for each of us. Moreover, inside every person you know, there is a person you don’t know. And this person you don’t know will ultimately show its ugly face.

2. Structures Do Change

The only thing that is constant is change, and the world is not only changing fast but volatile as well. What I mean is that structures and models are changing that we cannot rely on the old models as structures that were once perceived to be infallible and guarantee of success. There is economic hiatus, recently due to COVID-19, personal tragedies to which a lot of us have learned valuable lessons, yet we have survived in the midst of all.

The Medium platform again is a good example. How many times have the Medium algorithm changes, and subsequently affects writers’ earning? All the tricks of earning thousands on Medium supposedly taught by the so-called ‘’GURUS COACHES/WRITERS’’ on the platform are no longer tenable.

Without failures, there would have been little or no invention. We must remember the likes of Thomas Edison and Colonel Sanders. Thomas Edison failed thousands of times before inventing the simple light bulb, while Colonel Sanders was turned down nine hundred times before he was finally able to register his recipes on Kentucky Fried Chicken.

If we want success, we must be able to embrace failure, as failure is a necessary step to success.

3. The Value Of Failing As A Country

The value of failures can also apply to a Nation. Two good examples are Germany and Japan in the second world war. These two countries came out stronger despite their defeat in this war. The effort to compensate and unify is at the centre of German politics, hence Germany opened its door to more than a million refugees during the Middles East crises.

This can be compared with Britain, which has all along denied the atrocities committed during colonization all over the world. Britain's arrogance has prevented her from learning any lesson, so the atrocities continue up till today.

4. Most People Quit Before Seeing The Result

This, unfortunately, accounts for why most people never make it to the success ladder. They quit too soon. Imagine Thomas Edison quitting at the say, the nine hundredth time, or Colonel Sanders walking away with rejection. We only hear them today because they stuck their neck out, learning from each failure until success is achieved. This soldering on until success is achieved is scientifically called The Learning Curve.

The learning curve theory states that learners’ efficiency improves over time, as the task is repetitively carried out. So over time, you learn to do things better, and of course, you also get better results. This is simply saying you learn through failures upon failures until success is achieved. Actually, the route to success is paved with pitfalls, potholes, and difficulties. Remember, experience is what we get when we don’t get what we want.

Talent Is Useful and Handy, But Success is much more than that. Success is hard work and relentless effort in working towards our vocation or goal.

‘’I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who practiced one kick 10,000 times.’’ Bruce Lee

5. Lack Of Boldness In Taking Decision

This is closely connected to the fear of failure. We want to take a vital decision, without which we cannot move forward, yet we hesitate for fear it might not take us to where we want. Some decision just has to be taken, and on time too. If we want to succeed, we cannot allow fear to paralyze us. If we do, we will be stuck in one place, and that will not progress.

Instead of shying away from making a decision, gather your team and give everyone a chance to air their view. There is no such thing as absolute control. Be prepared to rethink all views. That is why most small businesses fail.

The Takeaways

As much as we all desire success, we are all prone to making mistakes. Failure, therefore, is a natural process of life. Some failures must be personally experienced in order to learn fully.

“For every … company that became a $1 billion success in two or three years, the vast majority of the success stories out there took 10-plus years.” Ethan Sentura

There is still room for small businesses to thrive. If you are prepared to stick your neck out and learn from your failures, there is no reason why your business cannot succeed, and you too, like everyone else can have a happy ending.