Success

Thomas Edison once said, 'I make more mistakes than anyone I know. And eventually I patent them'.

 

Many great successes started out as failures.  Columbus failed when he set out to find a new route to India.  He found America instead (and because he thought it was India he called the natives 'Indians').  Champagne was invented by a monk called Dom Perignon when a bottle of wine accidentally had a secondary fermentation.  3M invented glue that was a failure - it did not stick.  But it became the basis for the Post-it note, which was a huge success.  Failure is Silicon Valley's greatest strength.

 

Your ability to handle failure and rejection defines the size of your financial success.  To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.  Mark Victor Hansen once said, 'You don't become enormously successful without encountering and overcoming a number of extremely challenging problems.'

 

Leaders, therefore, must be more creative than most, and creativity is largely discovery, a push into the unchartered and the unknown.

 

When the successes and failure of companies are examined, it is clear that achievement over the long-term depends on the ability to innovate, and take the leadership role in the industry.  Innovation is more than a good idea.  Innovation is the process that takes an idea, improves it, develops it and implements it.

 

In business, there may be no right answers but there are possibilities.  Don't be afraid of failure.  It brings knowledge that something didn't work.  Try something new.