Inspiration Friday!

Last week, I was sent an email from a reader, Bella Campbell, a content coordinator for Online MBA Today. I was so honoured that she reads my blog! She created an inspirational infographic that illustrates the important role failure plays in our success. So many people think that if they are not successful when they attempt something that somehow that defines them as a “failure”.

NOT TRUE!

Failure is just part of the process; and when you adopt that perspective you lower the risk of labelling yourself inaccurately. Just because you feel like a failure, does not make it true. Check out one of my previous posts addressing unhelpful thinking patterns; particularly Emotional Reasoning, to learn strategies for creating helpful thinking patterns that assist you on your road to success.

See the infographic below for some perspective, inspiration and an introduction to the power of paradoxical thinking. Ah, the paradox, seeing failure as a good thing helps you to gain perspective, focus on the task at hand with a brain state that is more receptive to retaining information.

Check this out!

Click Here for the original post by Bella Campbell.

• 90% of business startups will fail. 42% of those startups fail due to a lack of market for their product. Construction companies have the lowest 5-year survival rate at a mere 36.4%.
• J.K. Rowling herself claims to have “failed on an epic scale” and was “as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless”. Of course, once she introduced the world to Harry Potter, now a $15 million brand of her creation, things changed for her. Her estimated worth is now $910 million.
• Steve Jobs was fired from Apple and later realized it “was the best thing that could have ever happened to me”. He went on to build an empire that led him back to his own tech start-up and became a billionaire. 4,000 people now work for Apple.
• Bill Gates knows that, “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” Gates dropped out of Harvard and his first start-up, Traf-O-Data went under, making him no stranger to failure. However, he went on to become the billionaire owner of Microsoft and is well known for being an extremely charitable philanthropist. He was 31 years old when he started Microsoft, and became the world’s youngest self made billionaire at the time.
• Michael Jordan is a man who knows that failures are necessary for success. In his younger years he did not meet the minimum height standard and was passed over by coaches. Now, he has a championship record and an apparel line with Nike. He is currently estimated to be worth $1 billion.
• “Success is failure in progress.” This is a famous quote from none other than Albert Einstein. He was once expelled from school, then refused entrance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. However in 1921, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in theoretical physics.
• Abraham Lincoln went on to become one of the most influential Presidents of the United States, but only after failing in business and suffering a nervous breakdown. He also lost 5 elections before he was elected to office. One of his best quotes on the matter of failure, “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”

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5 Key Steps for Turning Failure into Success

…from the infographic

1. Investigate what went wrong.
2. Learn from your failure.
3. Realize that you have nothing left to fear after failing, because you’ve got nowhere to go but up.
4. Recognize that accountability is a very important part of turning things around. If you are the reason you failed, own it and move on.
5. Innovation:Trying new things can often lead to failure, but at least now you are more apt to take risks.

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There have been many epic fails in my life and career. Those were painful lessons; but memorable and powerful, and without those moments I would not have achieved so many of my personal and professional goals. 

Dr. Heather Drummond,  C.Psych.

Psychologist * Passionate Advocate for Flourishing * Human Muddling Through

#EmbraceThisMessyLife