#importanceoffailure

I'm not your typical entrepreneur. I'm from a Fortune 50 company. I was regularly allocating and tracking the source of the $ 100 million spend. When I was 42, I managed a subsidiary of the company with great success. I said to myself,” if you think you're this big, let's see if you can do it on your own." I've decided to buy a company. A friend of mine, and someone who worked for us before, was the general manager of Ioline. Out of nowhere, he called me one day and invited me to dinner. At dinner, he asked me if I would be interested in buying Ioline. He wondered why he didn't buy it himself. His comment to me was that he couldn't afford that cost. I told him I wasn't interested. Still, he convinced me to take a look at the deal. After reviewing it, he wasn't really interested. He almost went bankrupt. The previous year the company had lost 800 thousand dollars and the previous year it had lost 400 thousand dollars. After a long persuasion effort, I finally met with the staff, reviewed the plans, and wanted to learn how the company would capture this pink painting while it was almost bankrupt. It was an industry I knew nothing about. I turned down the offer once again. They finally asked me to make them an offer. I did, and they agreed. The agreement was finalized on March 22, 1992. I bought the company 10 days into the end of the first quarter. The company announced losses of $ 188k. The following month, the company suffered another $ 148 thousand in damages. I was starting to think this was the worst investment I've ever made in my life. It was a company that failed to return from harm, and it was my money that was at stake. I found some outside investors because I didn't want to invest my assets in one company. A small group of silent partners believed me.

It was even worse than I imagined. Our quality was low. We had to sell two for each product we sold. We were competing in markets we should never have entered. I haven't felt tension. Instead of focusing on the sense of tension, I concentrated on what should be done. To me, the name of the game was niche markets. Don't compete with the really big companies that can take you down. Make quality products. Facilitate the operation and provide excellent services. We we weren't doing it. I wanted to make products that were as easy to use as a toaster. I put a toaster in the reception room. The employees got the message. But I had to stop the bleeding first. By mid-1992, we were drowning in our line of credit and decided we needed to put more cash into good company. I wrote a check. We poured gasoline on the fire. At the time, it was like we were spending money to profit from a bad situation. I wiped $ 545K off the sunken debt costs. Corner offices came from companies that went. I've been very selective about a completely new squad. I tried to talk to people about coming here to work. I told them this wasn't the place where they'd make the most money. If you want to be involved with everything and see the value of your business, this is the right company for you. But if you're looking for personnel beneath you, jobs or political agendas made just to flatter you, you're not going to find that here. So those who came to Ioline to work were the ones who wanted to be there. The company has had amazing employees who understand what we're trying to achieve and know the value of every dollar. I made everyone realize from the beginning that if we're going to survive, we need to know the value of every penny. Touring the production site, I collected a bag of Bolt nuts, bolts and cables. “Who wants $ 20?” I asked him. Everyone raised their hands. I showed them the bag. They got the message. We have thoroughly examined all the products we manufacture. We stopped producing some of them. We redesigned the other products. I watched every penny. I was signing all the expenses, even if it was $ 50. I painted the walls with the other employees. I said to myself, " imagine a Fortune 50 guy painting the walls!” , I thought. We did whatever it took to make the company profitable. By the end of the first year, we were able to overcome the initial losses and generate a small profit. 2nd ed. we've gone from those used to 40 per cent cuts in the number of employees a year, redesigned the core product line to promise to use 50 per cent of the parts, reduced cost and improved quality. In that second year (1992) we were still in harm's way. 3. we've narrowed down the space we use by 40 percent a year; we've made 27 grand. In 1994, profits were over $ 800k, and by 1995, they had reached $ 1,540,000. By 1997, we had doubled the company's production.

The company had been profitable for 12 of the 13 years, including a series of 53 months in a row. I provided this using my basic business practices. Take care of everyone, prioritize, plan, execute, take good employees and equip them to do the job, manufacture good products and be moral. We paid a dividend in 1994 and kept paying it except for 1 year. Only six of the initial 90 employees are working with me today. The general manager, who asked me to buy the business, left. I translated ioline. I'm not going back today to work for a Fortune 50 company. I was nominated to be Entrepreneur of the year in 1996. In the intervening 13 years, investors have achieved a 33 per cent return on investment on an annual basis; not bad for a company that has one foot in the hole. Despite my initial fear, it turned into one of the best investments I ever made. What I've learned: > > Expect the worst. When they presented me with the forecasts, I looked at it, went to a comprehensive outage and we couldn't even make it happen. > >Stick to the plan and stay in your path. Stick to the ground rules. It was worse than I thought it would be. Don't be nervous. Address the issues. Look at the logic of the situation and make sure it's done. > >Always think about how you can improve the company, how you can make it better, and how you can reduce spending. > > When things are going well, try not to think things are going well. If you think like that, you can start doing stupid things like expensive development spending or trying to do a job you know nothing about. Be straight, in touch and ethical towards everyone. Run things around. > > Don't ask employees to do something you're not prepared to do yourself. Make understanding the industry and the customer you serve) an important point.

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” — J.K. Rowling

Why Failure is so Important

Failure, as much as it hurts, is an important part of life. In fact, failure is necessary. I have failed more times than I’d like to admit. And I’m not talking about small failures; I’m talking about the kind of failures that rock your world, completely altering the landscape of your relationships, finances, and mental-wellbeing. And, if you’re anything like me, then you’ve also most likely failed many times over. I can’t say that I particularly enjoy failing, but failure, through its life-altering lessons, makes us into better persons. In fact, failure is life’s great teacher; it’s nature’s chisel that chips away at all the excess, stripping down egos as it molds and shapes us through divine intentions. Without failure, we’d be less capable of compassion, empathy, kindness, and great achievement; we would be less likely to reach for the moon and the stars. It’s through failure that we learn the greatest lessons that life could teach us.  

What is Failure?

What is failure, really? Why is it so important to fail at something before we can succeed? Not too long ago, I wrote an article about 12 Famous People Who Failed and it really got me thinking about the nature of failure. What is it and how does it affect our lives? How does it affect our thoughts, emotions, and our actions? When we think about failure, we think of things in a negative light. We say that failure is painful and that it causes emotional turmoil and upset, and inflicts agonizing pangs of guilt, regret, and remorse. But, for those that have known true failure, and have bounced back from it, understand that failure in life is necessary for success. Sure, failing hurts. In fact, it cuts deep like a razor, slicing its way to our inner core. Yet, it’s necessary. And the most successful people in life have failed the most times. If you try to go through life without failing at anything, then you’re not really living a life at all. Taking risks and falling down flat on our faces is part of life; it makes us into who we are. When a baby is first learning to walk, she’s going to fall down many times. This, in fact, is failure. But, ask any mother about their baby’s ability to walk and she will wholeheartedly declare that her baby will one day walk. She might fall down many times, but she will surely walk. Why is the mother so confident that her daughter will walk? Of course, we all know the answer to that. We know that falling down and failing while learning to walk is just a part of life. So, why isn’t failure at other things treated this way? What we don’t realize as is just what some people had to go to in order to get where they are in life. Like the baby learning to walk, they had to fall down and fail many times. The problem? Society tends to celebrate the successes rather than highlighting the epic journeys towards success that are filled with trials, tribulations, upsets, setbacks, and failures. It’s not as glamorous to talk about those things. “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.” — Michael Jordan

Why It’s Necessary to Fail

In life, it’s necessary to fail. Failure is a steppingstone. In fact, there are 5 very powerful life lessons that failure helps to teach and instill in us. If you’ve recently failed at something in a major way, and you’re going through a difficult time right now, keep these important lessons in mind.   Failure Lesson #1: Experience The first important lesson gained from failure is experience. What happens when we fail? When we go through something and can walk away with firsthand experience, it helps us to develop a deeper understanding for life. The experience of failing at something is truly invaluable. It completely alters our frame-of-mind through the induction of pain. It makes us reflect on the real nature of things and their importance in our lives, transforming and improving our future-selves.   Lesson #2: Knowledge Failure brings with it important firsthand knowledge. That knowledge can be harnessed in the future to overcome that very failure that inflicted so much pain in the first place. Nothing can replace the knowledge gained from failure. When Thomas Edison famously failed nearly 10,000 times to create a commercially viable electric lightbulb, with each failure, he gained the knowledge of just one more avenue that didn’t work. It was the accumulated knowledge developed from nearly 10,000 failed attempts that ultimately led to his success.   Lesson #3: Resilience Failing in life helps to build resilience. The more we fail, the more resilient we become. In order to achieve great success, we must know resilience. Because, if we think that we’re going to succeed on the first try, or even the first few tries, then we’re sure to set ourselves up for a far more painful failure. The characteristic of resilience can help us in so many ways in life. Resilience helps to breed success by setting the game up to win. Gone are the lofty expectations that thing will happen overnight, and in comes the expectations that true success will take an enormous amount of work and effort.   Lesson #4: Growth When we fail, we grow and mature as human beings. We reach deeper meanings and understandings about our lives and why we’re doing the things that we’re doing. This helps us to reflect and take things into perspective, developing meaning from painful situations. Life is designed for us to grow and improve. From the very genetic fibers that make us into who we are as individual persons, into the fabric of society on a global scale, growth is a fundamental part of us. Without growth, we couldn’t improve life on every front.   Lesson #5: Value One of the biggest lessons that we can learn from life’s failures is the necessity to create and spread an exceedingly high amount of value. In fact, value lies at the heart of success and a lack of value is a fundamental pillar to failure. In thinking about your past failures, think about how much value you brought to the table. Could you have offered more value? Would that have prevented failure? When you learn to create immense value, and do so consistently, you will eventually succeed.  

How to Recover from Failure