There is a story about an executive who saw an opportunity to launch a new product line–something he invested millions of dollars of the company’s money in. But the product line proved to be a flop, and he lost the company a great deal of money. He got called into the CEO’s office expecting to get fired, and when he asked the CEO if that was case the CEO responded with “I just spent millions of dollars training you, why would I fire you now?”
Cultivating this mentality towards failure is not easy. Let’s face it, no one likes to lose; maybe that is because most people view losing as the opposite of winning. But failure is one of our best opportunities for growth. Without failure we would be less likely to develop compassion and empathy. We may stop taking risks because we never learned that failure isn’t fatal. I choose to view any failure as part of the winning process: if I learn from it, I never actually lose.
“I never lose, I either win or I learn.” –Nelson Mandela
Have a great weekend,
Vijay