Even more successful failures

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Subject: Even more successful failures

What is “holding you back” from creating the life of your dreams?

Have you “failed” in the past? Or, are you just scared to try anything because you might “fail”?

Throughout history, there have been thousands of famous failures.

Let’s take another look at some very successful failures and see what we can learn from their stories.

Emily Dickinson

One of the most famed authors of modern times, Emily Dickinson largely considered herself a failure for much of her life.

As a fiercely-devote introvert, she was reluctant to embrace many face-to-face relationships, opting instead for correspondence rather than in-person meetings.

She was born in 1830 in Amherst Massachusetts and led a rather reclusive life for much of her years, being called reclusive and eccentric by the locals who had come to know her.

She never married. She spent much of her time writing poems about dystopian subjects such as death, but also wrote vehemently about immortality, things she would also often discuss with “friends” through correspondence.

While Dickinson became one of the most renowned poets in history, less than a dozen poems were actually published during her lifetime.

And, when poems were published, they were usually altered significantly because their style departed so much from the norm of the day with their lack of titles and odd capitalization and punctuation throughout.

While Dickinson might have been categorized as a failure during her lifetime, it was likely due to her reluctance to meet or correspond with many people about her work.

However, after her death, her sister discovered a significant cache of poems totaling upwards of 1,800 that were eventually published, helping her to ultimately gain international notoriety and fame.

Bill Gates

Born in 1955 in Seattle, Washington, Bill Gates by no means struggled as a child.

In fact, he had quite the stable upper-middle-class upbringing, with a renowned lawyer for a father, William H. Gates, Sr.

It was originally intended by Gates’ parents that he follow in his father’s footsteps and become a lawyer.

At the early age of 17-years old, Gates had demonstrated the entrepreneurial spirit.

He formed a company with his childhood friend, Paul Allen, called Traf-O-Data, in an effort to analyze and process raw traffic data from traffic counters and present that data in a reporting format to traffic engineers.

Their goal was to build a hardware device that could read traffic data tapes and produce the results without having to do the work manually.

On the big day of the reveal, a supervisor from the County of Seattle’s traffic department came to see it and the device failed to work.

The business failed before it had much of a chance to get off the ground, giving Gates an invaluable lesson that he would carry forward with him.

In 1973, Gates enrolled in Harvard University after scoring a near-perfect SAT score of 1590 out of 1600.

However, it was the following year that Gates dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft with his partner, Paul Allen.

The decision, while contentious at the time, was okayed by his parents after much discussion. Obviously, it was the right move.

Soichiro Honda

Born in 1906, Soichiro Honda was a Japanese inventor and industrialist who created the automotive empire by his namesake — Honda Motor Company.

However, while Honda’s company has certainly grown to rival even that of Toyota, Honda’s earliest days were anything but easy.

Yet, it was his perseverance and his tenacity to never give up that kept him going and helped him to ultimately succeed.

Without any formal education to his name, at the age of 15-years old, Honda left home to head for Tokyo to search for work.

He later found at an auto repair shop where he apprenticed and worked for the next 6 years before returning home to open up his own automotive shop.

During the Great Depression, in 1937, at the age of 31-years old, he founded, Tōkai Seiki to create piston rings for Toyota.

He toiled and labored night and day to create these, but to no avail.

With little cash and bleak chances for survival, he had to pawn his wife’s ring just to make ends meet.

He failed ultimately, and was told that the rings didn’t meet Toyota’s specifications.

However, he refused to give up.

He went back to school and continued to search for ways to improve upon his prior designs.

Eventually, after two more years of designing and trying, he succeeded and successfully secured a contract with Toyota to create the piston rings.

But shortly thereafter, his factory that he built to build the products was hit by a bomb during WWII when a B-29 bomber run carpeted the area.

After he rebuilt the factory a second time, an earthquake leveled it.

But he refused to give up.

Instead, he created a motorized bicycle that would become the start of the Honda motorcycle.

Michael Jordan

Born 1963, Michael Jordan is a former professional basketball player and also the owner of the Charlotte Hornets team.

Called “the greatest basketball player of all time,” Jordan’s professional career is something for the history books, with a game play that will likely be unmatched and unrivaled for decades to come.

At the age of 15-years old, while a sophomore in high school, Jordan was passed up for the varsity basketball team, instead being assigned to the junior varsity team.

He cried after he saw that list without his name on it.

But instead of giving up, his mom convinced him to push forward.

Every time he thought about stopping his training, he would picture that list without his name on it.

He was able to take failure in stride.

He allowed it to push him rather than to entirely defeat him.

At the age of 21-years old, he entered the NBA as a professional basketball player for the Chicago Bulls, where he would go on to win six championship titles and become one of the most impactful players to ever grace the courts.

Jordan is credited with once saying that, ”I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Source – wanderlustworker

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So, what can we learn from these historical Successful Failures?

They were beaten down and “lost” at many things, yet they kept persevering.

They didn’t give up. They weren’t afraid to “take the shot”!

Their desire to succeed overrode any fears they may have had.

Do you give up when failure strikes?

Or, do you take your failures and find the “silver lining” and learn from the situation?

I hope you take these examples and examine your own life and make any necessary adjustments to turn the corner.

Take these famous Successful Failures and use them to build the desire and determination to “pick yourself up” and keep reaching for your dreams just like Dickinson, Gates, Honda and Jordon did.

To your future success,

- Duane Eberhard

PS – Watch this video of another Successful Failure. From multiple failures to millionaire. It’s pretty inspiring!

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