Life Lessons Applicable to Business
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
Let’s face it, we all make mistakes. We all have failures and disappointments. However, unless we take the time to examine our mistakes and failures, we risk missing the very insights that drive excellence.
In John C. Maxwell’s book, Failing Forward, he emphasizes that the challenges are not that we are going to have disappointments and failures (because we will). Instead, he states “Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success.”
Unfortunately, fear of failure causes Leaders to not recognize the value of the failure that shapes what can be done to be successful. In fact, Maxwell suggests that if a leader appears to be excelling at everything, they may not be stretching themselves far enough.
This month’s life lessons learned are two-fold:
- Not taking enough risks to fail and
- Not learning from the failures once made
By embracing our failures and allowing ourselves to “fail forward,” we instead position ourselves for greater opportunities than we originally imagined.
Maxwell says: “Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence.” So, he encourages us to “Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.”
To consider:
- When is the last time you took a look at a failure to assess what can be learned from it?
- Are you so afraid to fail that you are not taking risks – and the right risks – to propel your organization forward?