The road to success starts with failure

We are getting close to that time of year when many people will be graduating from high school or college, and making some very important choices that will dictate the direction their life will head. Change can be exciting, scary, and challenging, all at the same time. The best thing a child can have when making those decisions is the advice of a role model, a wise teacher, or a loving parent or family member.

People often find that their biggest obstacle to success is one’s own self. I spoke to someone a few months ago who told me they had tried to start a business they had always wanted, but it didn’t work out so now he was just getting by with a job he didn’t like. He said he had dreams of a different life, but “that just didn’t happen.” With the sound of despair in his voice, I had imagined a sad story of repeated failure to the point of giving up, but when I asked him how many times he had tried at his business, he said once. Once is never enough if you want to succeed. No matter what your ambitions are, you must work at it day after day, and never give up.

A man who was fired by a newspaper editor because he lacked imagination and didn’t have any good ideas was named Walt Disney. An aspiring movie producer was rejected multiple times by the University of Southern California’s “School of Cinematic Arts,” and his name was Steven Spielberg. A man by the name of Theodor Geisel, had his first book rejected by 27 different publishers; he is best known today as Dr. Seuss.

The number 5,127 is an important number for Sir James Dyson, because he spent his life savings and 15 years of his time making prototypes that failed. If he had stopped at 5,126 he would not have created the bestselling bag-less vacuum brand in the United States worth more than 4.5 billion. An executive who oversaw one of the first screen tests by Fred Astaire wrote: “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Slightly balding. Can dance a little.”

It easy to hear success stories, or find inspiration in something you are passionate about, but it is important that our children who are starting a new journey in their life understand that success comes from the failures along the way. When learning to walk, you will first fall, over and over again. Being a success does not mean you have become rich, famous, or invent something that will change the world. It means that you accomplished what you wanted in life, and never gave up, no matter how many times you fell. We must teach them that it’s okay to fall. You will fail, and you will fall, but it’s what you do after that determines if you are a success.