Zane Safrit is thinking about the role of failure, posted at the Duct Tape Marketing blog complex.
I’m a fan of failure. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with it. That familliarity has taught me great lessons like humility, compassion, patience, perseverance, planning, flexibilty. And it’s taught me that no success comes without failure. In fact most successes are built not on top of mountains of failure, but on top of mountain ranges of failure.
He tells the story with running as an example. (Something I would never have thought of doing.)
Safrit says that not only do failures allow you to learn, they feed into each other, build on one another, until you have learned enough to reach the next success. Remember that we don’t learn much from success; we are too busy being successful right then to learn! We can do our best learning from our failures. If you are trying to hide a failure, you can’t learn from it. The shame is not in failure; the shame is in failing to learn from it.
His conclusion is dead-on accurate:
Failure. It’s way over-rated as a sign of …failure; way under-rated for its role in signifying progress.
small biz rural entrepreneurship success failure
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
Okay. I can’t take it any more. What the heck is with all the posts on Failure? I must’ve missed the original theme of them. What are you getting at here? : )
You finally snapped! :)
Here’s the theme: failure is essential to success. As small business people, we have to work through a mountain of failures to reach success.
It’s all part of my evil plan to redefine the word “failure” so it does not imply a negative judgment.
The other half is I’ve been waiting for someone to comment on any of it. You are the first one brave enough to take on the subject!
I love this. What a great idea. Have you written a much larger piece on this and it slipped by me?
Well, it wasn’t as long as the Catblog Content Engine, ;) but I did do one. Back on What is “Failure”? Right at the end I gave a little intro to this recurring feature. I think you were busy conquering more worlds when it went up. :)
So, at your prodding, I have put up a summary of my master plan.