Failure Is Inevitable
Expectations
Imagine a scenerio: You started a business. Now, four years later, with nothing to show for your efforts but the lessons you learned and $40,000 in debt, you close your doors and walk away dejected.
Now imagine a second scenerio: You enrolled in college. Now, four years later, with nothing to show for your efforts but the lessons you learned and $40k in student loans, you close the doors on your college career and walk away elated.
What is the difference? Expectation.
In the first case you expected a thriving enterprise that would make you rich and successful. In the second you expected a set of skills that would propel you forward in your life. Many would argue that in the long run, the lessons you derived from your business were more valuable. Have you ever skated through school? Fudged a bit? Didn’t pay attention? Forgot some/most/all of what you learned? But in your business every experience is permanently emblazed in your memory, and every lesson taken to heart.
Throughout your life you will fail. Every new thing you try, like the toddler learning to walk, will have failures - some large, some small, but there, nonetheless. As T. Harv Eker said, “Every master was once a disaster.” Even if you have a perfectly successful venture and opt to stay exactly the same, the world is changing around you.
So the lesson is this: Can you see past your expectations to what value you actually derived? And can you move forward from every “failure” with the same hopeful elation of any graduation?
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