Everybody (almost) likes to think that they are accepting of failure. It's very fashionable to talk about how failure is a stepping stone on the way to success.
However, here is a question for you - if I would ask you to invest in my latest endeavor and tell you that my last ten ventures have all miserably failed - would you invest in me? Assuming you actually like the idea I am going after - would you even take the time to figure out whether I failed because of different issues every time?
Even if I each one of my ventures failed due to different reasons, the reality is that the vast majority of people would consider me a failure rather than take a deep look at what I have learned from these experiments. Considering that some of the greatest inventors and entrepreneurs in recent history made multiple, unsuccessful, attempts to make their invention or business work that attitude seems fairly short sighted. Doesn't it?
In a lecture I once saw the lecturer was giving advice on how to make yourself seem more interesting - "If I tell a joke, you will think - that's funny. If I tell you another one you will still think that the joke is funny. But after the third joke - you will think that I am funny". It seems that the same holds for considering someone a failure - after enough failures we will all tend to think that the person is a failure rather than accepting the extremely high risk that often comes with doing things in a radically different way.
So how can we avoid missing great entrepreneurial leaders just because we mix the failure with the person?
However, here is a question for you - if I would ask you to invest in my latest endeavor and tell you that my last ten ventures have all miserably failed - would you invest in me? Assuming you actually like the idea I am going after - would you even take the time to figure out whether I failed because of different issues every time?
Even if I each one of my ventures failed due to different reasons, the reality is that the vast majority of people would consider me a failure rather than take a deep look at what I have learned from these experiments. Considering that some of the greatest inventors and entrepreneurs in recent history made multiple, unsuccessful, attempts to make their invention or business work that attitude seems fairly short sighted. Doesn't it?
In a lecture I once saw the lecturer was giving advice on how to make yourself seem more interesting - "If I tell a joke, you will think - that's funny. If I tell you another one you will still think that the joke is funny. But after the third joke - you will think that I am funny". It seems that the same holds for considering someone a failure - after enough failures we will all tend to think that the person is a failure rather than accepting the extremely high risk that often comes with doing things in a radically different way.
So how can we avoid missing great entrepreneurial leaders just because we mix the failure with the person?
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