Did you ever wonder why some people are successful at what they do while others struggle? We tend to think it’s because successful people have a special formula or that they’re born with talents some of us don’t have.
While there may be some truth to that, the real answer is usually simpler: They don’t give up. When a successful person has an idea, they stick with it, refuse to take no for an answer, or keep trying new ways to not fail. Failure is not the end of the road; it’s inevitable and it’s a learning experience. Thomas Edison said he didn’t fail 1,000 times at creating a light bulb. He merely found 1,000 ways it wouldn’t work before he discovered one that did. In fact, there’s only one time where you actually fail at something. It’s when you quit.
There are famous examples of how failure led to success. Stephen King’s novel “Carrie” was rejected 30 times before it was accepted by Doubleday. Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies went bankrupt. Walt Disney was fired from his newspaper job for lack of good ideas. He then started an animation company that quickly went bankrupt, and he ended up literally eating dog food to survive. Jim Carrey and Jerry Seinfeld were booed offstage during their first performances. The Beatles were turned down by nearly every record label and told they had no future in show business. A review of Fred Astaire said “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Not handsome. Can dance a little.” Colonel Sanders set out with his famous chicken recipe at the age of 65 with only a $105 Social Security check to his name in an attempt to sell his franchise restaurant model. Over a thousand restaurants told him no before one finally said yes.
Remember, we don’t really fail at anything until we quit. Finding ways that something doesn’t work or realizing we need a different approach isn’t failure. It’s how the success process works.
Mark Campbell
The moral of these examples is that if you have a good product or idea and believe in yourself, others will too, eventually. But you have to have thick enough skin to get through the rejections. (That may ring a bell with folks who have experienced the drama of Merit Image Review critiques.)
It’s a tendency of human beings to believe we’re not good enough and that we can’t succeed in ways we feel are important. The truth is that we fear failure and rejection so much that we can talk ourselves out of anything, even a great idea. The ability to push past that doubt is often what differentiates those people we acknowledge as accomplished from everyone else.
Michael Jordan, arguably one of the best basketball players ever to play the game, was cut from his high school basketball team. He once said, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” He also said, “Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it or work around it.”
Remember, we don’t really fail at anything until we quit. Finding ways that something doesn’t work or realizing we need a different approach isn’t failure. It’s how the success process works. But to give up on something we feel in our hearts is possible is to let our fear win. Life isn’t easy, but it can be whatever we make of it. Keep your eyes on the prize, my friends. There’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
Mark Campbell owns Prestige Photography in Wheeling, West Virginia.