What Leads To Success When Failure Is All Around Us

by A Guest Author

If you attempt to fail, and succeed, which have you truly accomplished? This question was once posed to me in the form of graffiti on the side of a clock tower in Siauliai Lithuania. I was doing the generic backpack trip through Europe and at the time it held little impact on me as I read it in passing.

However, the question stuck in my head for a long time and I would often reflect on it with no serious reservation. But I would reflect nonetheless. What I’ve come to realize is that the saying is rubbish, the answer obviously being you succeeded at failing. You can only attempt to succeed at something, you cannot, by any means attempt to fail. So the question itself is contradictory. Any other convoluted explanation only attempts to play the same game that the question itself is evoking, the game of confusion.

What the question did manage to inspire in me was a different question all together. How can one wholeheartedly make an attempt at something, with all the means and ability in their power, and fail? Meanwhile there are those who never make an honest attempt at success, and still succeed. What makes success? Well I recently ran across a TED discussion on this very topic. Richard St. John offered up through his experience 8 points that can lead business people to success, which I hope to describe properly here in the following.

Passion: Be Driven By Your Passion.

This statement may seem a little generic to start, but when you consider it, it makes perfect sense. How much attention can you really give something, how much determination can really be present if you genuinely care very little for what you are doing? The understanding of passion has to be properly understood as well. What really puts it into perspective is if you ask yourself “Would I pay someone to be able to do what I am doing?” If you answered no, then you are not passionate about it. The idea is in the end you would do it for love, not money.

Work: Work Should Be Hard, Nothing Of Worth Comes Easily.

It’s been long understood that the harder you work, generally, the better the results. So work tirelessly, leaving no stone unturned in your efforts. In the end, you will be no worse off than had you not worked hard. But if you do, there is a greater chance that success will follow in whatever endeavor is being undertaken.

Good: Practice Makes Perfect

If you’re going to do anything, you ought to do it well, or not at all. Making sure your hard work is of quality, and not just quantity, will go a long way in any attempt at being successful. It should be doubly noted that for perfection to come about in anything, takes great practice, stagnation does not help improve. Thus the maxim “A rolling stone gathers no moss” becomes quite fitting.

Focus: Keep Your Eye On The Ball

Distractions reduce productivity; this is obvious in any work setting. You cannot have passion, nor work hard, nor ensure that work is perfect if you cannot keep your mind fixed on a single goal. A wandering mind may help in certain settings, such as the name of that song you forgot, or to help spur on and generate ideas. But if you are unable to focus on the goal you have set for yourself, chances are you will never reach said goal. Or it will take a tremendous amount of time.

Push: Push Yourself, And Test Your Limits

Inhibitions do nothing more than stifle your abilities. You must overcome all self-doubt, reservations, insecurities, timidity, and hesitancy if there is to be room for success. You must both take charge as well as charge forward if success is to follow.

Serve: Take Pride In Your Service

Success does not arise from self-service. It comes from serving other people, and from being served by others. The only way an honest and wealthy person made their fortune was by serving people something of value, and taking pride in that service. Meaning that what they were serving was not deceitful or harmful in anyway.

Ideas: You Have To Start Somewhere, Which Always Begins As An Idea

There have been countless ways offered in the past for a means to generate ideas. A few of them are to listen, observe, and question. These may seem unhelpful, but the idea of generating ideas is to free your mind of anything you may already be thinking. This is not simple when left with your own mind and by yourself. So to be free from that restriction, don’t speak, and just listen.

Persist: Never Give Up, Never Surrender

In order to be successful, you absolutely must persist. If you give up at any point, that is failure. You even have to persist through failure at times to finally achieve success. St. John put it best, that you have to persist through CRAP, which is Criticism, Rejection, Assholes, and Pressure. Simply put, persistence is paramount.

Hopefully these 8 points will help to clarify what leads to success, and how it is achieved. You should also remember that you can never attempt to fail, all we can do in this life is make attempts at success. We may at times fail, but failure can, and should be overcome. Which leaves me with my final belief that failure leads to success. I would almost argue you have to fail time and time again before you succeed. As nothing can be learned from succeeding, you’ve done everything accurately. But failure has countless lessons to be found within, and these lessons are what we learn from. So be happy for your failures, you have much to learn from them. These lessons will lead you to success.

About the Author

The author of this article was Damien S. Wilhlemi, a content creator and self appointed SEO guru. You can follow me on twitter @JakabokBotch to realize that you don’t know Jack! I am writing on behalf of Premier Trade Solutions who specialize in Purchase Order Financing for businesses.

This post was written by A Guest Author

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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Jake October 18, 2012 at 3:47 pm

Great work! This is the type of info that should be shared around the internet. Shame on Google for not positioning this post higher! Come on over and visit my web site . Thanks =)

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Chad Agrawal October 18, 2012 at 9:46 pm

Thank you Jake!

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