Why failure is important for success

Steve Jobs was fired from Apple – the best thing that happened to him, said Jobs who went on to innovate incredible products for Apple later on

Failure. Many of us have been there. Some have refused to go beyond it while others have persevered and gone on to conquer great frontiers – be it business, entrepreneurship or anything else. But few have realized the value of failure as a teacher.

Why is failure important for us to acquire greatness? Why does it matter that one should have failed at least once in one’s quest in life? Business, like most aspects of life, builds character. As Apostle Paul said in the Book of Romans, sufferings build perseverance and perseverance builds character, which amounts to experience that no university can teach.

Failure shows us that there are better ways to get things done. If you do not fail on the first or the second time around, you will not perfect your delivery, your service or your product. Failure is a great teacher that helps us to fine tune what we have got until we know it is ready to deliver the kind of results it should.

Entrepreneurship is all about perfecting your promise – if you haven’t come across some form of failure, you will not become a successful entrepreneur because you would not have had to work on your product or service. When we fail the first time, for many, it is bearable. You try again but there might be failure around the corner. Almost always, failure teaches us lessons that can be used to build credibility and garner results – if only we choose to learn from the experience.

Some of the world’s best-known business personalities and entrepreneurs have faced failure many times. But they never gave up. Walt Disney was initially rejected by a newspaper editor who thought Disney had no imagination. It is well known that Edison tried 10,000 ways with the light bulb before he succeeded. FedEx founder Fred Smith had a university professor who thought the idea was not feasible.

There are more. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple – the best thing that happened to him, said Jobs who went on to innovate incredible products for Apple later on. Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg are among those who faced failure many times before proving to themselves and the world that they indeed had what it took to become successful.

What is important is our perception of failure. How we view failure is critical to how well we will grow into a maturing business venture or an entrepreneur. Only when we fail, we understand the value of aspects that determine the continuity of a business. We live in a world that is changing as we speak. The paradigms that govern it are constantly shifting. Some on a daily basis – how ready are we, our businesses, to embrace these changes? Failure will determine if we can indeed incorporate change towards becoming more successful or relevant in the world we operate in.

Very often, the core focus of a business will only emerge after a trial and error run. It is not difficult to find that as tune tweak your product mix, you might actually get away from your original focus of the business. As you go along, failure will show you that the area you might be focusing on is not always the right one. It may also propel you towards a better, more efficient way of doing things – for the better.

Negative feedback can also encourage you to regroup, rebrand and rejuvenate a flagging venture into something that can actually work. Not all combinations work well – one may do better than the other. Always use the opportunity to rethink an idea. Failure doesn’t mean it will not work – it merely has to be repackaged.

Sometimes, the environment around you may dictate terms to how you run your business – things can change or you might find greater opportunities – but only when you face an obstacle in your path. Such obstacles may look like mountains but will only be the hills before the valleys. Use the opportunity well.

It is always a good idea to be more realistic about a venture than be euphoric. Too many people mess up early on because their expectations are too high – when you focus on building from ground level upwards, failure can only help you better your service or product. Work with possible realities and not dreams – you will be able to develop a bigger vision as you go along but for now, stick to what can be achieved.

Opportunities abound – failures also teach us to be optimistic about tomorrow. What we haven’t yet experienced is good for us because it is all about the opportunities out there, the ones we haven’t really seen or known. Yet, opportunities only beckon if we see them as opportunities. We need to be mindful of what we perceive and see.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill
(Nayomini Weerasooriya, a senior journalist, writer and a PR professional, can be contacted at [email protected])