I was having lunch with my partner the other day at PF Changs.
By far one of my favorite restaurants, after Brazilian Steakhouse.
After a big plate of sesame chicken, egg drop soup, and lettuce wraps (it wasn’t a light lunch I guess), I cracked my fortune cookie, and it said “Failure Is The Mother Of Success”.
Now most people would go – “that’s nice” or “that’s cute”, but to me this is 100% true and is THE MAJOR reason why people struggle and give up.
See, when you’re young your tolerance for failure, rejection, setbacks, disappointments, criticism, ridicule, etc… is very, very high.
But as we get older, it dramatically decreases, to a point where most adults can’t stand the thought of making a mistake or failing at something.
Yet failure is the very thing that DRIVES success.
Look at it this way, everything has it’s opposites. Without a low, there’d be no high. Without dark, there’d be no light. Without left, there’d be no right. And without failure, there’d be no success.
So failure is a necessity.
The other thing to understand, or better yet, remember, is we all start out as “failures” at anything we do.
I have twin girls, who just turned 2 yesterday.
Where does the time go?
Anyway, if you have kids then you can definitely identify with this, as you watch them go through different stages of the learning process.
From not knowing how to even crawl, starting to crawl, and take first steps, fall down, get up, do it again, fall down, get up, do it again, many, many times…. and then eventually they start running and you can’t stop them.
Now think about it, when the child takes that first step and falls down, do you go, “oh no, they’re a failure, they’ll never learn to walk”?
I know it sounds ridiculous, yet that’s EXACTLY what adults say to themselves when trying and failing at something for the first time.
There are 4 stages of the learning process you’ve got to go through to master ANYTHING. From walking to becoming a professional athlete or anything else.
This is a point where you don’t know that you don’t know.
Let’s take copywriting, the art of writing ads as an example. Until you know what copywriting and direct response marketing is, you have no clue that there’s a better way to market something.
You’re not even aware of what you’re lacking.
If you’re reading this I know you’re way beyond that.
Because the minute you realize that you’re missing the knowledge or the skill of doing something, you move to the next level…
You now know that you don’t know.
You understand that it’s possible to do this, you just don’t know how to do it yet.
This is an exciting stage, because it’s where you start seeing opportunities, solutions, and get ideas on how to improve.
In the example of marketing and copywriting, you start noticing that others are implementing certain things, techniques, you don’t know them yet, but you know they exist and you start searching for information on how to get better at it. How to learn these skills.
A lot less people are moving to this next stage, where they starting to actually implement what they’re learning.
You’re now a lot better at it, you understand what you’re doing, but the problem is that it’s all still done on a very conscious level.
Meaning you have to put a lot of effort and energy behind it.
This is where you start experiencing more setbacks, because you’re trying new things, some work and some don’t. And it’s where lots of people drop the ball.
Because they expect things to go perfectly for them, but nothing ever does. There will ALWAYS be setbacks, and the key is to realize they WILL happen and change your attitude towards them.
By practicing your skills and getting better at it, you enter the last stage…
You’re now a pro. Doing things automatically, because these skills have become a part of who you are, just like walking and talking and a lot of other things which at one point seemed impossible, and are now second nature.
The only way I know to get to this stage is to plow through the setbacks and the temporary defeats. And understand they are temporary.
When you look at the big picture, and keep your eye on the goal, it’s easier to move forward, then when you get caught up in the day to day drama of things that may not always go your way.
I used to think that there comes a time where everything you touch just turns to gold.
And if you think that way, I hate to burst your bubble, there’s no such thing.
In business, it all boils down to trying and testing, and taking calculated risks. If I show you the number of projects I have started, where I got the idea that I’ll promote this and sell this… and then show you how many of them actually became successful, it’s about 20 to 1.
Doesn’t sound very exciting, right?
You know you try 20 different things and 1 works.
But to me this is VERY exciting.
For 2 reasons.
One, as you do more, you get better, a lot better, and you learn what not to do next time. (this is by the way how I learned mostly everything i know, before jumping online and over the last 6 years online). When you make every mistake in the book, you figure out what doesn’t work, and next time you don’t make that same mistake.
And the second reason I’m excited about it, and this is a BIGGIE.
Most people (most of your competition) will not do this.
They’ll try something, it won’t work, and they’ll stop. Then they might try again, and when that doesn’t work, they’ll stop again.
They’re always starting and stopping, there’s NO COMMITMENT. And when there’s no commitment, there’s no room for success.
Most people haven’t learned that failure is a necessity and a pre-requisite for success.
So when I see thousands and thousands of people jumping on the bandwagon of online marketing, I know that well over 95% of them, and actually more like 98%, will NEVER follow through.
Isn’t that great news?
There’s hardly any competition out there if you look at it this way.
The person who’s willing to try the most things and fail, is the one who’ll eventually make it big in business.
So I sincerely hope you try different things and fail more often.
The faster you fail, the faster your succeed.
Cheers,
Vitaly
P.S. BTW, to learn everything you need to know about copywriting (i.e. the art of writing kick ass sales letters and ads), check out my Ninja Marketing Special at…
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