April 26, 2010
Failure Is Not What You Think It Is

What do Henry Ford, Miles Davis, Thomas Edison, Confucius, Robert Louis Stevenson, Horace, Robert Kennedy, Sir Laurence Olivier, Thomas Watson, Beverly Sills, Douglas McArthur, Winston Churchill, Malcolm Forbes, John Barrymore, Paramahansa Yogananda, and Charles Kettering have in common?

An enlightened view of what "failure" is.

If you want to innovate, you will first need to let go of your notion of what failure is all about...

"An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots." -- Charles Kettering

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none." -- Miles Davis

"The way to succeed is to double your failure rate."
-- Thomas Watson, Founder of IBM

"Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently."
-- Henry Ford

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." -- Confucius

"Give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself." -- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it." -- Horace

"I have not failed once. I've just found 10,000 ways that didn't work." -- Thomas Edison

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
-- Robert F. Kennedy

"No matter how well you perform, there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy." -- Sir Laurence Olivier

"If your life is free of failures, you're not taking enough risks."
-- H. Jackson Brown

"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try." -- Beverly Sills

"I failed my way to success." -- Thomas Edison

"99 percent of success is built on failure." -- Charles Kettering

"Act as if it were impossible to fail." -- Dorothea Brande

"Failure is success if we learn from it." -- Malcolm Forbes

"You can only be as good as you dare to be bad." -- John Barrymore

"The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success." -- Paramahansa Yogananda

"Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down." -- Mary Pickford

"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." -- Winston Churchill

"We are not retreating -- we are advancing in another direction."
-- Douglas MacArthur

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -- Thomas A. Edison

"Fall seven times, stand up eight." -- Japanese Proverb

"Stumbling is not falling." -- Portuguese Proverb

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at April 26, 2010 01:19 AM

Comments

Mitch:

"Failure is just the empty part of the cup of Success."-- relmuche

Posted by: JJPEREZK [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 27, 2010 09:55 AM

Another thought: "We all do dumb things. What matters is what we do afterwards."-- Dave Crehore, author. And, one my views: "Mistakes should be cremated, not embalmed. Learn from the light of the flames, don't dwell on the body."

Posted by: Stu Walesh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2010 01:23 PM

"Do or do not. There is no try.' -- Yoda

Posted by: Jjlight47 [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2010 01:37 PM

FAILURES are PILLARS of SUCCESS.

Posted by: Jim Shroff [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2010 01:40 PM

Take chances... make mistakes... get messy!
- Ms. Fizzle, The Magic School Bus

Learning from failure is one of the 5 Essentials for Innovation. Check out the rest of them in our blog post here:

http://www.creativerealities.com/innovationist-blog/bid/46875/The-5-Essentials-for-Innovation

Posted by: Lorie [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 5, 2011 01:00 PM

Goldratt embraces failure. Since it is a sign that you did not fully understand the situation. And therefore offers opportunities for an improved view.

Posted by: PJW [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 25, 2012 10:10 AM

FAILURES are PILLARS of SUCCESS. https://keralalotteriesresults.co.in

Posted by: roopa [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 21, 2018 02:36 AM

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