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Success is a word that resonates with all of us. It’s the fulfillment of our goals and dreams, and for entrepreneurs, it often means the rewards associated with creating a popular and profitable product or business. As a society, we celebrate those who reach the pinnacle of success, but we often overlook the rocky road they took to get there—a road that is often filled with failure, disappointment, and countless setbacks.
Being an entrepreneur often means failure is less likely and almost certain. Therefore, entrepreneurs must remain resilient and learn to overcome rejection, obstacles, and outright failure to achieve their dreams.
In Silicon Valley, for example, failure (often spectacular) is not only accepted but often celebrated as a necessary step on the journey to success. There are dozens of entrepreneurs who had to hit rock bottom before they could rebound.
Steve Jobs famously was fired by the board of directors of the company he founded, only to come back and turn Apple into one of the most profitable and innovative companies in the world. Before co-founding PayPal and becoming a billionaire, Peter Thiel managed a hedge fund called Clarium Capital. Founded in 2002, the company grew to $8 billion in assets but struggled after the 2008 recession, losing 90% of its value by 2010.
Related: Six Things Embracing Failure Will Do to You
American billionaire and television personality Mark Cuban quit or was fired from his first three jobs after college. However, one of these experiences led him to start his own computer systems company, MicroSolutions.
“No matter how many times you strike out,” he wrote in the letter. How to win in business sports: If I can do it, you can do it too. “To be successful, you only have to do it right once. Once, you’re set for life.”
Of course, viewing failure as a necessary step toward success goes beyond business. Michael Jordan, widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, emphasized the key role of failure in his career. Despite his five MVPs, six NBA championships, and numerous records and scoring titles, he believed failure was necessary for his success.
“I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost nearly 300 games. 26 times, I was trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. Time and time again I missed it. Jordan wrote: “This happens again and again in my life. That’s why I’m successful. “
Related: Why Success Is Meaningless Unless You Accept Failure
Or consider Taylor Swift, who has become one of the most successful artists of her generation. She also admits that luck and failure were stepping stones to her unparalleled success. In fact, during her 2023 iHeartRadio Innovator Award acceptance speech, she encouraged young people not to overreact to failure, emphasizing their role in shaping their journey to success.
“You have to allow yourself to fail. I try my best not to fail because it’s embarrassing, but I do allow myself to fail and you should do the same,” Swift said.
Having worked with teachers and young people for decades, I believe Swift’s message to her fans is powerful and necessary. For too long, I’ve seen our education system instill a distaste for failure, treating it as something we should be ashamed of rather than celebrate.
I was lucky enough to learn the hard lessons of failure at a young age. When I was 12, I started a charity called Free the Children, which I started with the help of family and friends after reading stories of children my own age being forced into slave labor in Southeast Asia. .
Initially, our organization focused solely on freeing enslaved children by breaking down factory doors and guiding them to safety. In our mind, we were successful because we thought that by freeing these children from factories, we would change their lives forever. But inevitably, as months go by, we see the same children returning to different factories, sent back by their families or those who control them.
Related: How to Recover from Your First Business Failure
We failed because we didn’t understand the root cause of why these kids were there. Their families are extremely poor, with no schools and little food, health care or clean water. These underlying conditions lead to children ending up in forced labour.
So, from that initial failure, we learned that we had to shift our thinking and start addressing the conditions that forced families to give up their children. This led us to create an innovative five-pillar model that provides families with educational opportunities, clean water and income opportunities to achieve economic self-sufficiency. In the process, we turned initial failures into greater successes, benefiting thousands of children in developing countries.
The ability to be resilient in the face of failure may be more valuable than an MBA, a long list of business contacts, or seed funding. Failure is not a four-letter word; it is a stepping stone to success. It’s time for us to shift our thinking and embrace failure as a valuable teacher of essential business and life skills that will lead us to success.