History abounds with examples of people persevering in the face of adversity, as well as those who gave up too quickly. A prime example of giving up to quickly in electrosurgery is
William Bovie; he decided to move on from electrosurgery and sold his patent for a dollar. To draw from sports, professional athletes Wayne Gretzky and Tom Brady did not have the physical attributes to make it in the “major leagues” when they started out. Yet they both overcame any obstacles in their way; combined, they led their respective teams to seven championships. We can learn from Gretzky, Brandy and Bovie by remembering that even though the road to success is riddled with obstacles, they are to be learned from and overcome; obstacles lead us to uncovering and honing our abilities, because exertion gives us power, and out of difficulties new strengths are born
Next, let’s look at the career of a prominent historical figure that had multiple failures before attaining peak performance. This person began his career by starting his own business; he went broke, not just once but twice. He then decided to try his hand at politics, losing his first bid for legislator; in his second attempt he won. Soon after, his sweetheart died, which resulted in an extended period of depression and the loss of his bid for the speaker of the state legislator; he was then defeated in the nomination for congress. Three years later he was elected to congress, but lost his bid for speaker again. From there things still went wrong: he was passed over for a land officer job, defeated for a position the U.S. senate, defeated for nomination for vice president, and lost another state senate race. Finally in 1860 he was elected president of the United States. Who was this person? Abraham Lincoln; arguably the greatest President this country has ever elected!
We can learn from these examples and many others by realizing that failure is our greatest teacher, so long as we are not crushed by it and learn from it. Are you a learner or non-learner? When you make a mistake, do you learn from it and don’t do it again? Also, when you do something correct do you take note and try to repeat it? In other words, do you look at the journey to success as a tunnel or funnel? In a funnel you keep excluding actions and choices that don’t work, while repeating the ones that do as they traverse the funnel, until you hit your stride and launch yourself into success!
A string of failures do not lead to more failures, as every failure has the potential to be last one. Anyone that can sit at the feet of failure, humble themselves by learning from it, exert themselves gaining power, will eventually reach peak performance. In summary, Failure + Perseverance + Exertion = Success. Someone once said, “Failure is the path of least resistance.” Stay the course while learning from your mistakes and triumphs by taking every opportunity to Grow, Grow, and Grow! If you have a dream, believe in it and why you are doing it.
It is very hard to find the lesson when in the midst of failure, but I agree that the road to success is littered with failures of all sizes. Sometimes obstacles can be viewed not as potential failures but as guides that we can bounce off of (so to speak) so as to redirect our goals. I feel that when we begin on a journey to success, we often do not have all the information necessary for a straight path and that obstacles and failures can act as a road map to success.