Being a keynote speaker myself, trust me: Every inspirational guru worth their weight in motivational tapes loves to talk about the importance of success in life, love, leadership, management and business. What you won’t hear as many mention is the importance of failure in driving personal or professional growth, change and evolution. Fun fact: Failure is how we learn from the earliest age. Few babies are born knowing how to walk – it goes without saying that to succeed in any task, we always have to try, stumble, shake off the bumps and bruises, pick ourselves back up and reapply the knowledge gained until the desired result is achieved. And guess what? It’s no different for the world’s leading businesses and brands, or most successful individuals.
What qualifies an ‘expert’ as such? Oftentimes, simply the fact that they’ve had the wherewithal and perseverance to tackle hard tasks, take the pain, and push through to reap the rewards that so many deprive themselves by shying away at the first sign of threat, pain or danger. A willingness to dive into hard tasks or big problems, fail, then reattempt tackling the challenge using the insights gained is, by far, the most reliable way to succeed. Which isn’t to say that you should go in blind, or act with recklessness: Rather, that you be prepared as possible, make an attempt, and not be discouraged if the results don’t turn out as planned. Case in point – how many prototypes do you think the average groundbreaking technology or software product goes through before it ships in the state we all know and love? There’s a reason why development cycles can be several years along.
As a keynote speaker, I highly recommend you watch the following video, which discusses the topic more in-depth. Take from it what you will – just promise me that you’ll think twice before quitting going forward, or stopping doing what it is you do best.
