“Success is largely a matter of stumbling forward. We fail forward to success. It’s a case of falling forward and getting up whenever you fall down and beginning again. Failure is an inevitable and necessary and a useful part of being successful. Actually we learn more from failing than from succeeding, because failure impresses us…

“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of failure…

Many of us, when we screw up, fail, or are rejected, do two things without thinking: first we cover it up; second, we go right from the “failure” to “I’m worthless!” We take it personally and the learning we take away is to never, ever to get caught in that kind of situation again. The…

Raganwald blog shares lessons learned in What I’ve Learned from Failure. Some of the areas he covers are Why does failure matter? and The four most important causes of failure. He also has a section on Finishing. His lessons from software development have plenty of relevance for all small biz people. small biz rural entrepreneurship…