failure

Failure…. It’s an interesting word, mostly with very negative connotations to the point that when we hear someone use the word, it makes us strangely uncomfortable.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a mate of mine who referred to his business venture as a failure.

While I have had my own business for ten years, I’m not what you would call a success when evaluated against the accumulation of financial wealth. I haven’t made millions of dollars, but that’s not my goal in business or how I measure success anyway.

I think what matters is how you look at failure. Like most things in life, perspective is everything. 

Yes, business and companies need to make more money than they spend to survive, that’s a fact. Therefore, if it’s not going to survive it’s probably better to call it early. Business is a gamble and like sitting at the casino’s roulette wheel, you should never bet your life savings on one.

But while business and companies can fail, it doesn’t make us as the business owner a failure, in fact quite the opposite.

In every perceived failure we must consider the learnings and experience we amass along the way and how these will shape our future self.  The passion, courage and tenacity to get in the arena and give something a go are traits far removed from failure and much more closely aligned with a success mindset.

“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” Hemingway