D.K. Pathak
Managing Director Message
To succeed a lot, it helps to fail a lot. So if you’re not as successful as you’d like to be, maybe you’re just not failing enough. Remember that Babe Ruth had the most success in terms of home runs but he also had the most failures in terms of strikeouts. There are many other examples that show quantity counts. The more times you fail, the more times you can succeed.
Rower Silken Laumann says that when she started rowing she tipped the boat over more than anyone else, “The first time I started rowing I tipped 21 times. Just to put it in perspective most people tip maybe once or twice in their entire career. This is how my summer went. Splash! Crawl back into the boat. Yet all these failures helped turn Silken into a world-champion rower. Moving from sports to science, Albert Einstein once said, “Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.”
It,s almost like successful people collect “Frequent Failure Points” sort of Frequent Flyer Points, where the more you fly, the more points you get towards a free ticket. With Frequent Failure Points, the more you fail, the more points you get towards success.
Real estate agent Elli Davis has lots of Frequent Failure Points. She says, “I was going through old files the other day and I can’t tell you how many times I did not get the deal. People say, “Oh, Elli, she gets everything,” and I say, “You should see what I don’t get. It’s a number game I get a lot because I do a lot.” That helped take Elli to the top of her profession.
Google cofounder Sergey Brin said to fail many times to succeed once.” When he said that my immediate response was, “Wait a minute, Sergey! Google isn’t exactly a failure. It’s a super colossal success,” to which he responded. “Google didn’t fail, but we have many projects that do fail. Not all projects work out.” It’s comforting to know that even the big guys rack up their share of Frequent Failure Points, the same as we little guys.
In my company, we learned long ago that to succeed a lot you’ve got to fail a lot. So when we’re trying to come up with ideas for an ad campaign, a video, or even where to have lunch, we’ll generate dozens of ideas. All of them will fail and get lossed in the garbage, except for one. And that’s okay, because one good idea is all we need.
So if you’d like to have more successes, have more failures. Start earning your own Frequent Failure Points today. They could be your ticket to success.
I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games…I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. Michael Jordan basketball superstar.
I believe in a lot of failures, and failing quickly. That way don’t spend too much time, and you can move on to the next thing.