Are you a failure? Good. Read on and find out why it’s good to be a failure.
Success is often a matter of perseverance. General Ulysses S. Grant knew this. Shortly after taking command of the Union army, Grant faced off with the Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of the Wilderness. The battle was fierce, heavy losses were suffered, and after a couple of days, the fighting died down and Lee withdrew.
The battle was officially a draw, but many of the soldiers and officers thought that Grant, like his predecessors, would order the Army of the Potomac to pull back to the defensive. But Grant had other plans and ordered the army to press on and attack. The campaign of 1864 had begun in earnest and Grant would not let up until he accepted Lee’s surrender just over a year later at Appomattox.
It was Grant’s dogged perseverance in pursuit of success that eventually led to the ultimate victory for the Union despite losing nearly every single battle he fought against Lee.
Here are a few other well known highly successful people who were also failures:
- Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor, failed 14,000 times before he finally invented of the incandescent light.
- Henry Ford, before he became a famous car manufacturer, was broke at age 40.
- Vince Lombardi, at age 43, was a mere line coach at Fordham University before he became one of the most revered American professional football coaches in history.
- Albert Einstein and Werner von Braun both flunked courses in math.
- Enrico Caruso, the famous Italian tenor, couldn’t carry the high notes so often that his voice teacher advised him to quit.
What these people have in common is that they were great failures, but few people remember their failures, yet most everyone remembers their successes!
As the saying goes, it doesn’t matter how many times you fall down; what matters is how many times you get back up.
My favorite perseverance quote is from Zig Ziglar who said it best when he said: “The major difference between the big shot and the little shot is – the big shot is just a little shot who kept on shooting.
Failure shows you had the guts to try. So it doesn’t matter if you fail at something one time, two times or 14,0000 times, what matters is that you shake the dust off, learn something, and give it another go based on the lessons you’ve learned from the failure.
Are you a failure? Good. Now shake the dust off, reflect, and get back in the ring.
Coach Clay
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