Have Courage When You Fail

Life is like a chess. Wrong choice of move sometimes will get you checkmated -- no matter how intelligent or smart you think you are. The queen collapses, the others on the gameboard remain standing, but the game is over.  The good thing is we can start another game!

In business, it takes years to set up and sustain one. Normally it takes five (5) years to see if it can stand the test of time.  We see many successful businessmen and we want to be like them but we do not know what is really behind those successes. They also experienced how it failed -- not just once, but many times.

According to Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, "If you don't give up, you still have a chance.  Giving up is the greatest failure." 

We do not want to experience that greatest failure. So never, ever give up when you feel it is very hard to move, when you have that rockbottom collapse and when the world leaves you alone. Life gives us many chances to succeed -- we only have to figure things out how to have that next chance to rise again and see sunshine.

I think there must be a swift change in how people look and treat those who fail in life, particularly those who fail in businesses. We read a lot of social media posts bullying and prejudging them. What they need is a big moral boost from their family members, community and government. Because if their businesses succeed, there will be positive domino effects.

Herebelow I listed some names of people who experienced failures and beat challenges (enclosed in parentheses) in their lives before they succeeded in their current businesses / organizations, based on smallbiztrends.com and Wikipedia. Let's do more Googling about them. I will add more later.

1. Arianna Huffington - Greek-American author, columnist and business woman, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, now owned by AOL (36 publishers rejected her second book)
2. Jeff Bezos - American technology entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist,  and founder, chairman and chief executive officer of world's largest online retailer, Amazon Marketplace (failed in an auction site which evolved to zShops) 
3. Kathryn Minshew - Chief executive officer and co-founder of The Muse, a career-development platform (PYP media)
4. Akio Morita -  Japanese businessman and co-founder of Sony (took years to develop  products; first product was a rice cooker that ended up burning rice)
5. Benny Luo - Founder of NextShark (failed in network marketing, affiliate marketing and online poker)
6. Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank - Co-founders of The Home Depot (fired by Handy Dan)
7. Christina Wallace - Vice president of Growth at Bionic and Startup (former co-founder of Quincy Apparel, shut down in 2013)
8. Evan Williams - Computer programmer and internet entrepreneur who has founded several internet companies including Twitter (Odeo) 
9. Fred Smith - Founder, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of FedEx, originally known as Federal Express (got a poor grade on assignment when he pitched the idea for the company; his college professor disagreed)
10. Henry Blodget - American businessman, investor, journalist and chief executive officer of Business Insider (a civil securities-fraud complaint on conflicts of interest between research and banking was lodged against him)
11. Henry Kaiser - American industrialist, founder of Kaiser Shipyards and considered to be the "Father of Modern American Shipbuilding" (World War II - his Liberty ships caused soome hulls to crack)
12. James Dyson - British inventor, industrial design engineer and founder of the Dyson company; best known as the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, which works on the principle of cyclonic separation (15 years to develop, evolved from 5,126 bagless prototypes)
13. Lawrence Ellison - American businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist who is co-founder, executive chairman and chief technology officer of Oracle Corporation (many years of struggles;  he had to mortgage his house to keep the business afloat)
14. Milton Hershey - American confectioner and philanthropist; founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company and the "company town" of Hershey, Pennsylvania (got fired from his apprenticeship with a printer; his three candy companies all failed)
15. Momofuku Ando - Taiwanese-Japanese inventor and businessman born in Imperial Japanese Taiwan who founded Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd; known as one of the inventors of instant noodles, instant ramen, and Cup Noodles (2 years in jail for tax evasion; many tries to develop the noodles)
16. Morten Lund -  Entrepreneur based in Copenhagen, Denmark who has founded or co-invested in more than 100 high-tech startups like itchXO, CapitalAid Ltd, Skype and eBay in the last 15 years (got bankrupt in the past)
17. Peter Thiel - American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, philanthropist, political activist, and author; Paypal and Facebook investor (lost big amount in stock market, currencies and oil prices on hedgefund Clarium Capital)
18. Reid Hoffman - American internet entrepreneur, venture capitalist (PayPal and Airbnb), author, co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking (SocialNet)
19. Tim Ferris - American entrepreneur, public speaker and author who has written a number of self-help books on the "4-hour" theme (turned down by 25 publishers)
20. Vera Ellen Wang -  Americanfashion designer known for high-end wedding gowns (failed to make the US Olympic figure skating team; turned down by Vogue for editor-in-chief position)

Tal Ben-Shahar said, "Failure is an inescapable part of life and a critically important part of any successful life." 

Loud and clear, yes! "Failure is a critically important part of any successful life." So we must not be afraid to fail. We must tell our children and young generations not to fear failure. There are many cases of chronic depression and suicides due to failure. We must teach them to endure the pains brought by failure, by embracing hope, then learn the lessons.

Thibaut Meurisse said the same, "The truth is that our mind needs failure! No great inventions would have come into existence without failure."

With the announcement to extend residency visa for investors in the United Arab Emirates from three (3) to ten (10) years, in addition to chance to own the business 100%, we can expect to see the rise of home-grown businessmen who, within that period, can start their businesses, maybe fail as a natural part of life process, survive, thrive, generate sustainable revenues and help the ecosystem.

I think that the environment will be more conducive for the businesses and authorities caring to allow each entrepreneur to grow where they are, and will be more tolerant of business failures with some support to help avoid such, and fix if necessary to move forward. It is like pruning trees for better growth. We do not transfer them from where they are rooted to somewhere else, but let the roots remain tightly held by the ground. Pruning and other nurturing must be done.

Failure provides value so do not be knocked out by anxiety, stress and fear. Be gentle with yourself, and passionately master your reaction to failures. Even if you feel stuck at the bottom, bounce back up with courage! 

---

Photo credits:  Pixabay