FAILURE: YOUR BEST FRIEND – I don’t have a best friend. I have friends and close friends, but no best friend. But one thing that I do have is a lot of failures. I’ve been so open about the many failed businesses I’ve had over the decades. Those failures sharpened my saw to what it is today. From the moment I see a business structure, I already know if it’s bound to fail or crush it. What I do believe is that success is always waiting for you, but it’s just beyond the horizon of failures in front of you now.
Quick story on Mount Everest.
Each year, thousands of people try to conquer Mount Everest knowing that they could not reach the summit or the top. Based on the data of the Himalayan Database, only about 5,000 people have ever summited Everest — the world’s highest peak at 29,028 feet above sea level.
Reaching the summit involves months of training, preparation, and time spent climbing the mountain, as well as up to $65,000 in permit fees and equipment. In 2017 alone, about 39% of people failed and about 288 people have died on the mountain between 1922 and 2017. This data has not stopped people from trying.
Writing this makes me want to try it myself, knowing I could fail at it. Or even die.
Climbing Mount Everest can be as challenging as becoming wealthy too. Building your financial assets and returns is filled with dangers plus risks that are causes of failure. Real Estate prices falling, companies going to liquidation mode, pandemics destroying an economy, and a lot more.
There are plenty of examples of failure, but like the fully committed climber, you need to stay focused on your end goal. You learn what you can from failing and move on from it.
There’s a lot of mountaineers that have not conquered Everest for the first time and returning to base camp to regroup from a failed attempt to try again. Many who have experienced failure on their first attempt finally get their prize, reaching the summit.
The reason? They refused to stop trying, even if it kills them. Comfort is not in the vocabulary of someone who is willing to fail over and over again. Failure is a successful person’s best friend.
So how do you put this into action?
Start by owning your fears. It’s just human nature to be afraid, to be fearful. Even during the time of the stone ages when man was trying to hone it’s flight or fight instincts. Courage and determination, lots of them. This is how the most successful people counter their fears.
“FAILURE IS MY BEST FRIEND”
I’ll share 3 important questions you need to ask yourself to help evaluate how you can proceed with a financial investment for example.
1. What do you fear that you will lose? I need you to be objective and honest to yourself. I don’t care if your fears seem small or insignificant, just don’t be ashamed if you feel that it’s a big deal or not.
2. What are you going to miss out on by failing? When you don’t proceed with this investment or opportunity, what are the upsides and returns that you could possibly miss out on? Is that possible income important to you or not?
3. What’s the worst case scenario here? If you pursue this financial investment and your worst fears happen, what’s going to be the impact on your bank account, your overall wealth and your “summit’?
Here is how you can reduce the risk of a major failure. I said reduce, not ELIMINATE.
When you finally get to overcome your fear of failing does not mean you are ignoring the risks involved here. There shouldn’t be any scene here that you could lose EVERYTHING.
A catastrophe like that happening includes the following:
– Learning how to manage your risks
– Taking sound advice from experts on protecting your investments
– Understanding the dangers of having your entire wealth in one basket (I wrote about it here: STOP COUNTING YOUR CHICKENS: HERE’S WHY)
If you need some advice on financial investments, always look for a financial adviser who has experienced it themselves. There are plenty of financial advisers out there now who claim to be that expert, but have NEVER experienced failures that are near catastrophic. I personally have taken advice from those that went from rags to riches to rags and back to super riches. I’m lucky to have had business mentors who went to extreme levels of massive failures. They’ve made failure their best friend very much more than an actual friend.
My advice for someone in their early 20’s and 30’s is to try out as many things as you can, fail at them, readjust your focus by reassessing your goals, then take action again towards it. It’s a cycle and process of failing over and over to garner as many success at the same time. If failing 7 or more times for me equals one to two success, I’d take it in a a heartbeat. Looking back as it, all those failures were the lessons I needed to guide me through the course of my life. Just like a best friend should be.
Book a 1-on-1 coaching assessment session with me here: COACH ANTONIO WORKS
Visit my YouTube Channel and my Instagram Page for more.
TOPIC: FAILURE IS YOUR BEST FRIEND
January 7, 2021 Author James Santos
It is you friend because failure teaches and trains you what success can’t. Individuals that consequently stroll into progress regularly pass up a ton of exercises that those of us who fizzle have the occasion to learn. Individuals who have disappointments find out about compromise, systems and what their customers need and needn’t bother with. These are a portion of the exercises you can gain from failure or disappointment, that you may not get when you have prompt achievement. I have seen the individuals who pick up quick achievement frequently stall out when they do fizzle, so there is another side to that also.
January 7, 2021 Author Aldwin
Failure is your friend because it helps you grow personally and professionally. Failure causes you to be more creative and more innovative.
January 7, 2021 Author nico
Disappointment or failure creates pain, and torment is the best educator.
I’ve generally said that business visionaries take in their best exercises from lost cash, lost time and lost chance. Those are altogether excruciating, indeed, however that agony fills a need: it shows you what not to do in business.
January 7, 2021 Author joseph
I believe that failure is a must-have ingredient in that magic-mix that makes people successful.
There are certain lessons, insights, gifts, and skills that can only be developed through failure. For example, you can’t develop the ability to stay calm, steady, strong and faithful through hard times without pushing through a failure.
Failure instills you with a deeper sense of humility.
Failure offers you a true feeling of appreciation for the achievements that you have been able to accomplish.
Failure tests your ability to stay grateful even when everything is going against you.
January 7, 2021 Author Jim
We all experienced failure in life. Disappointment shows you how much your fantasies truly mean to you. You will never see the amount you’re dreams really mean to you until you have fizzled.
Failure gives you that game changing decision of picking between one or the other abandoning your objectives or choosing to do whatever it takes for your fantasies regardless, through thick and thing, despite seemingly insurmountable opposition.
Disappointment tops you off with a specific drive, assurance, and endless constancy that individuals who haven’t failed don’t have.
By demonstrating you what not to do, failure instructs you that triumphant equation that you need to succeed.
January 7, 2021 Author genesis
Failure is our bestfriend in a way that it will always be there in our side. The lessons we learned from a experienced will help us in everyday lives.
January 8, 2021 Author Khel Lawrence
I, for one, have experience multiple failures in my life. Whether big or small, I consider them not as a failure, rather a challenge– an obstacle that I stumbled on and work my way out to success. Failure is just another norm in our lives. Everyone has already experienced failures. You are not human if you have not yet experienced this.
Whenever we face this, all we have to do is to just face it head on and keep on trying to overcome that failure. That way, we can end up being a better person.
January 9, 2021 Author rhona
By allowing yourself to own a failure and refusing to sugarcoat it or make excuses about it — you mature, adapt and move on. It’s this acceptance that is absolutely paramount for personal and professional growth. Acceptance isn’t resignation. Acceptance is what the most mature, emotionally intelligent people in the world practice.
January 9, 2021 Author pogi
Failure wasn’t my worst enemy. Failure, as it turns out, was my best friend.
Failure is not the end. It’s not where we should get lost in fear. No one likes to talk about their most intimate personal or professional failures in the moment because they’re embarrassed. They’re confused. They’re lacking self-awareness because it feels like their world is, at least temporarily, caving in.
January 9, 2021 Author edward
It feels great to succeed especially if you always do something to achieve your goals. But those that always succeed are less prepared than those that fail regularly. When you dive into your challenges and develop the mentality to get up as quick as you can after each failure you are growing the mental muscle called Perseverance.
January 9, 2021 Author jocelyn
You hold the strength to overcome failure. You hold the key to your success. You make the choice to own your life and stand back up after you have fallen. Choose to do and fall &, I guarantee, you will eventually do and win.
January 27, 2021 Author THE POWER THAT FAILING GIVES - Antonio Aguirre Jr.
[…] want to pursue the success journey, you will need to learn to fail forward. More on FAILURE – FAILURE: Your Best Friend, The 5-Step Failure Checklist, RESILIENCY: Bouncing Back From Failure People who are unsuccessful […]
January 29, 2021 Author STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS - Antonio Aguirre Jr.
[…] READ MORE ON FAILURE: https://antonioaguirrejr.com/failure-your-best-friend/ […]
February 2, 2021 Author rhona
Failures, especially big ones, are often blazing signposts of life lessons we have yet to learn.
Before this failure, did you have warning signs that the choice might not be the right one? Did you ignore those warning signs? There’s a reason for that.
Chances are good that there was something this choice was meant to teach you. Figure out what it is, and you won’t make the same mistake again.
February 2, 2021 Author Redido
Success is all the more enjoyable when it’s tempered by the experiences we have and knowledge we glean when we fail. And failure reminds us of how sweet life can be on the other side.
February 2, 2021 Author Joseph Santos
Anyone can make failure their friend by maintaining a teachable attitude and using a strategy for learning from their mistakes.
February 2, 2021 Author aldwin
No matter what kind of adversity you experience, there is always a potential jewel of success contained in it. Sometimes it may be difficult to find. But you can discover it if you’re willing to look for it.
February 13, 2021 Author READY TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS? - Antonio Aguirre Jr.
[…] READ MORE ON BUSINESS FAILURE: https://antonioaguirrejr.com/failure-your-best-friend/ […]
February 20, 2021 Author LIFE LESSONS FROM CURTIS “50 CENT” JACKSON - Antonio Aguirre Jr.
[…] READ MORE ON BUSINESS FAILURE: https://antonioaguirrejr.com/failure-your-best-friend/ […]