Andy Nichols
May 10
In the world of business, you can frequently come across the statement that failure is an integral part of success. A poorly adjusted strategy, bad timing or unfavorable conditions in the market at a given moment – they happen even to the best entrepreneurs. However, do temporary setbacks have to mean a complete elimination from the game, where the reward is the desired success? Read on to find out!
How to turn failure into success? – table of contents:
The pain of failure and the taste of success
Apparently, great things require sacrifices. Winston Churchill himself claimed that “Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” These words can also be applied to the business world, where entrepreneurs take certain risks every day that may not necessarily pay off right away in the immediate future.
Although it is much easier to talk about successes, it is problems that provide the most valuable lessons. When running your own business, you will often encounter obstacles that, unfortunately, you won’t successfully overcome. However, it’s important to remember that everyone makes mistakes, and the real key to success is not their absence from your development path, but the ability to draw correct conclusions even in the face of a crisis.
Successes are an understandable source of satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment, which is an extremely important aspect for any entrepreneur. However, it is often the failures that become a strong impulse to motivate brands to be even more active, sometimes even changing the entire vision of the company.
So it’s not worth breaking down due to temporary setbacks. Instead of giving up, you can treat each of them as a helpful signpost setting the course for development and fixing the actions taken so far. In the following section, we will present the stories of other entrepreneurs that have drawn conclusions from their failures, ultimately achieving the successes they so strongly desired.
Steve Jobs
The founder of Apple doesn’t need to be introduced to anyone, but not many people know that his success was not that obvious at the beginning. Jobs started out as a technician at Atari after dropping out of Reed College. In 1976, together with Steve Wozniak, he managed to found Apple Computer. He was only 21 years old at the time. However, due to numerous disagreements and unfavorable conditions in the market, Jobs was kicked out of his own company.
Only when faced with bankruptcy did Apple decide to take him back. Steve Jobs quickly took full advantage of his opportunity, transforming the company into one of the largest and most recognizable brands in the world. However, he didn’t just stop there. Through his efforts, he revolutionized the entire technology market, introducing such innovative products as iPhone, iPad and iMac.
Jobs said, “I didn’t see it that way at the time, but it turned out that being fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to me. The burden of success was replaced by the lightness of being at the beginning again. It freed me to enter the most creative phase of my life.”
So the entrepreneur did not break down after temporary difficulties, but on the contrary, used them as a motivator to work at full capacity and a reference point to analyze failures in the context of self-improvement.
“You can’t connect the dots by looking forward; you can connect them by looking backward. So you have to believe that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to believe in something – a hunch, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never failed me and has changed my life.” – remarked Steve Jobs.
Jack Ma
Before the founder of Alibaba, which today has a market value of $400 billion, achieved global success, he faced many setbacks on his career path. Due to problems with mathematics, Jack Ma wasn’t admitted to college in his hometown twice. At that time, he looked for jobs everywhere, at KFC and even in the police department. Unfortunately, his application was rejected in more than 30 places.
Eventually, it worked out. Ma got into English studies, and after graduating in 1988, he became a teacher. Although working in this profession did not bring significant income, Jack Ma did not give up his dream of starting his own business. In the following years, he managed to set up a language company, the main idea of which was to facilitate contacts between entrepreneurs from the Middle and Western countries. His next venture was Alibaba.
As Ma emphasized: “If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. And when you’re small, you have to rely on your own intelligence, not strength.”It was this approach that helped Ma learn important lessons from his failures that within a few years he became a top entrepreneur with assets worth billions of dollars.
Arianna Huffington
The author of 15 books and the founder of the Huffington Post. Today, she is considered one of the most influential women in the media. However, her professional path was full of twists and turns. Although many of her works have been appreciated by readers, the author encountered significant difficulties when publishing the second of her books:
“I remember when I was twenty years old and my second book was rejected by 36 publishers. I felt like changing my profession. But I didn’t give up, I went to the bank for a loan at that time and kept working.”
Arianna Huffington speaks openly about her mistakes, while also giving suggestions to other entrepreneurs on how to prevent similar problems on their career paths. Apart from the obvious determination and getting rid of the urge to give up after encountering various difficulties, Huffington stresses that one of the most serious threats to business is professional burnout. Therefore, even in the face of slightly more crisis situations, it’s worth reminding ourselves what really motivates us to work, persistently pursuing our desired goals.
Summary
Entrepreneurs have to reckon with various business risks. Although the desired success does not always come immediately, and the road to achieve it can be long and winding, the real win is your determination.
Read also: How can Device as a Service (DaaS) help your business?
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Author: Andy Nichols
A problem solver with 5 different degrees and endless reserves of motivation. This makes him a perfect Business Owner & Manager. When searching for employees and partners, openness and curiosity of the world are qualities he values the most.
