Very few learn this when they are children: defeat and failure are normal.
Yes, we all
want to be victorious and successful, but in reality, things are not in that
way and there will be more situations of defeat than victory, for many people.
The fear of
defeat and failure in our society is easy to explain, but in human terms,
defeat and failure offer a very interesting opportunity to grow. In fact,
success sometimes block growth – just check in the recent past companies like Pan
Am and Blockbuster: their growth, their enormous growth, took them to a point
that they became stable and slowly, they have descended.
Some companies
were creative like IBM and AT&T and they could prevent most of the fall, but
this seems the fate of successful companies. Maybe it is the successful people’s
fate too.
Recently,
in a nostalgic powerful moment, one of the greatest singers from the 80’s and
90’s performed one of her big hits, along another younger singer and the result
was a piece of magic in a very dark world… A moment of hope, a motivation to
take action and something beautiful.
Her life,
some say, was almost destroyed by success… I am happy she was able to stop her
own descent… but many couldn’t.
Failure is
something else. Many years ago, still a high school student, I read about a
book which name drew my attention. I asked the teacher who responded simply
that the book was not successful…
Many years
later, after a short stay living in Santiago, Chile, I saw a banner on the
street announcing the launching of that same book! Come on!
It took me
a few months or years, not sure, until I was able to be with one of the greatest
contemporary Brazilian writers who told me that book journey: it was a total
failure, then a different publisher bought its rights, it published again
several years after the first publishing and it became probably the most read
Brazilian book in History. It sold worldwide more than 60 million copies in
almost 70 languages.
Don’t be
mad at me for not revealing names (why do you have access to Google?),
but my intension is that I would like you to think about yourself…
Maybe, you
had a huge failure sometime ago, but life has turned around and that failure turned
into success.
Or you were
not able to sustain your professional success and things are not as they used
to be. Even though you are not having as much success as before, your mind is
light, your relationships are much better, you feel so well! It is success, in
a different way.
Perhaps you
compare yourself with others and you notice how much they have gained, and you,
so little… Take into account all you have, even your brilliant mind and the
potential that was not revealed yet. And embrace the successful person you are.
Of course,
there will be failures that won’t become a success… What lesson have you
learned? Which changes should you implement in your life after that defeat? How
that failure can turn into motivation for you or others?
I tell you,
defeat and failure, they are very sweet…
It is just a question of perception.
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