Recently wrote a post which essentially was a list of 20 great quotes by anonymous or unknown authors – and in the post I promised to expand into an ebook. This PDF is the promise. Click the link below to download.
PDF 35 GREAT QUOTES BY ANONYMOUS AUTHORS
Thank you. have a great read.
This post will be brief and about failure. We all know that no one wants to be called a failure or to be associated with failure. But failure happens to us anywhere. We fail on many items we set out to achieve. If we don’t clean the yard today as planned because it rained, we have failed. Because cleaning is construed as relatively minor task we don’t even notice we have failed.
There is always failure in some aspects of our lives.
Whilst it is painful to fail, failure validates that one had a try at something. You can’t fail your PHD if you don’t first enroll with the university. You can’t fail your driver’s license if you don’t enroll with the instructor and be subjected to an assessment by an examiner. You can’t be a failed farmer if you were never one before.
So failure validates that an action was taken with regard to what we failed doing.
Photo by Zohre Nemati on Unsplash
Failure is an equalizer; we shall all fail or have failed at something at some point in our lives. Failure knows no social class or gender. What you need to appreciate is that even the most successful and powerful can fail. With the successful you may not get to observe failure because they are successful.
I will share you a true story. It is about the great Henry Ford.
In the 1920s, Henry Ford, the most successful automobile entrepreneur of the time bought land from the Brazilian Government deep into the Amazon forest. His plan was to build one of the largest rubber plantations in the world. The plantation was to lessen his dependence on rubber coming from British controlled areas. Ford was cranking thousands of cars daily at his car assembly plants so it was in his interest to have control over supply of rubber for his automobile empire. He named the land FordLandia and immediately set to clearing the land and ploughed over 2million rubber seedlings.
But the project failed.
Why?
Parasites decimated his rubber plants; massive spraying campaign didn’t help much; the colossal $300 million invested in the project couldn’t save it from collapse. Think of it $300million in the 1920s, I don’t know how much it will be in today’s currency rates but I guess more than billion. Eventually the project folded and land was resold to the Brazilian Government possibly at a lesser value.
The story goes to show us that anyone can fail even the powerful and what I like about them is they don’t fear talking about it. To Ford failing accounted to nothing more than a lesson as he is one of the most celebrated entrepreneurs of all times and the Ford brand endures.
If you intend doing something, go do it and do it now.
In the event of failure, learn from the failure and rise to begin.
Don’t fear to fail because all of us have failed in the past or will fail in something in the future. But we will also succeed if we put our minds to work, take firm decisions followed by committed action.
Thank you for reading; I will leave you with an inspiring quote by Sabine from an article at www.mythrivehaven.com
“One thing to keep in mind, is you’re not a failure. Sometimes things don’t work out and that’s okay. That’s life. If you have no idea what’s next, that’s okay too. Take your time and figure it out” – Sabine
If you have time, do drop some comments about the article. We value your feedback so that we can grow the blog.
Recently I came across an email titled “You Miss 100% Of The Shots You Don’t Take”.
Initially, I thought of deleting the mail, but on realizing it is from the Mission Daily, I firmly decided to open and read. The article as with any article from the Mission was truly inspiring (brief). It taught me about the need to evaluate opportunities before deciding which one to let go or which one to take. The interesting part was as I was reading, aha moment struck – I thought of writing about the hypothetical incident below.
Suppose two supporters of soccer team argue and counter-argue about how good their teams are. Eventually the arguments become so heated with the possibility of deteriorating into insults. Then one wise and neutral person makes a suggestion to the two supporters. He said;
Let’s settle this debate through spot kicks into an empty goal. Each of you (two supporters) must take 5 spot kicks from 20 meters into an empty goal post. The one who scores most wins the debate.
The two supporters immediately agreed.
For some unknown reason, at the time when the two were supposed to take the spot kicks, Supporter A decided against taking part. Supporter B insisted he will take his spot kicks as he wants to settle the argument which he believed he had already won given the reasons he advanced as they were debate. The wise Umpire put the ball to the spot, invited supporter A to take the kick, he refused. Next, the umpire called Supporter B to take the spot kick; he went took the kick and scored.
Photo by Tamarcus Brown on Unsplash
By the time the spot kicks were concluded, it was;
Supporter A: 0 – Supporter B: 3
Supporter B won the spot kick contest and the debate.
What does this hypothetical story teach us?
I believe the hypothetical story contest does three things (may be more);
Napoleon Hill, the eminent man of success, had this to say;
“The man of decision cannot be stopped! The man of indecision cannot be started! Take your own choice”.
Supporter B could not be stopped to take the shots whereas Supporter A could not start or be started by the umpire.
I hope you found the post insightful. Please leave a comment below.
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