YOU're on the SUCCESS Train | Conquer Failure

Failure is not a bad thing.

Failure is the mother of all success.

You should seek failures.

No consideration of failure. You have to be able to rise from the failure.

Failure.

Definition of failure.

Getting things wrong is as important as getting things right.

Failure is kind of success training.

Hello, Believe Nation! Today we're gonna talk about how you can defeat failure. And as always, guys, as you're watching the videos, if you see something that really resonates with you, please leave it in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired. And if you write it down, it's much more likely to stick with yourself as well.

Yeah, I think failure is the highway to success, and I know that sounds like a platitude, but society— or people teach us, right? They say, "Oh, if you fail and feel uncomfortable, you've done something wrong." And what I try to do I do in all of my books and my presentations and my tweets is you cannot get to the mountaintop without taking a few missteps. And so a business that wants to win, you have to out-fail your competition. And as human beings, you know, failure is not a bad thing. Ask yourself, what's the opportunity from the failure? And get in the game, because when you get to the last hour of your last day, it will not be the failures you regret, it'll be all the risks you didn't take.

You eventually joined Harper's Bazaar US, and in 1976 it was, you were fired, and I find that extraordinary.

They were very clear in that they thought that I would never understand the American market. I remember I was the editor on one shoot that was, I think it was a French fashion shows, and I just decided that it would be interesting to have dreadlocks on the models, and I think that that pushed them further than they could bear. So that was it for me. But I think it's always part of life to have some knocks as well as some successes.

And to take risks.

And to learn. So I think it's healthy for everyone to lose a job as well as to gain a job.

I came up with a slogan and I tell it to my kids all the time. I say, There's no losing, only learning. There's no failure, only opportunities. And there's no problems, only solutions. So to me, what failure is, failure is the mother of all success. If it wasn't for Michael Jordan getting cut from his 9th grade basketball team, he wouldn't have became Michael Jordan. You know, if it wasn't for, uh, I seen an article the other day where they were talking about Oprah Winfrey and how she got fired because she wasn't good for television. You know, you got people like Walt Disney who got fired, if I'm not mistaken, from a newspaper saying he had no imagination. Tú me entiendes lo que te estoy diciendo? These are the same people that I got to deal with telling me what's not a hit record. So what do you tell them? You tell them, you know, that all they can do is learn and come back bigger, better, stronger, because all it's going to do is lead you in the right direction. See, if you're always winning, then you don't really understand what it is to win. You got to take those losses. You got to take those hits. There's got to be the valleys, the peaks, the ups, the downs in order for you to— when it does happen, you go, wow, qué rico. This is what it's all about. And not only that, it's never about making it, guys. It's always about maintaining it. That's the toughest part.

You should seek failures. See, if you're playing it safe, you're not going to win. If you're playing it safe, like that old saying, you know, you were taught when you were a little girl, better to be safe than sorry. Well, that's a bunch of crap. It's not better to be safe than sorry. It's by trying things that you figure out how far you can go. You got to get outside the box. Like it's reported Edison tried 3,000 ways before he built the incandescent light. He said he didn't fail 3,000 times. He said there was 3,000 different steps to building the incandescent light. It's like building a light bulb. Well, there's different steps to get to where you're going. And I really do treat winning and losing exactly the same. I do not let it upset me. Do you think that's a big part of why you're so successful? Well, it's part of why I enjoy it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it is, 'cause I'll try anything. Like, if I'm into an idea, the idea of losing never enters my mind. See, I have worked with giants. I had the good fortune of working with Sir Edmund Hillary. He was the first man to stand on top of the world, and I worked with him on 3 different occasions. And the only difference in Ed Hillary and Bob Proctor is in his, his size. Now he's gone now, but he was a big man. When he shook hands with me, his hand wrapped right around mine. I felt like a dwarf, you know. And talking to him, like it never entered his mind he wouldn't get to the top of the mountain. But he failed in 1951. He failed in 1952. It wasn't until 1953 that he got to the top of the mountain. Now, people had died for centuries trying to do that. He said, "I knew if I could see it in here." I could hold it out here. Stella Mann wrote that in a book. You can see it in your head, you can hold it in your hand. And that's right. And if you're not prepared to lose, you're never going to win because you're always playing it safe. And there's no, there's no reward in that.

I've always had this really gross, dangerous mentality of the no consideration of failure. Just never even considering the thought of failing. Like, if I want something, I just go until I get it. And that doesn't always work, but— I think, like you said, every single artist goes through that. Like, and I think a lot of times you think that the great writers are the people, they just write hit after hit after hit, and they do, but it's also because they get through all the terrible songs first. And I mean, I think that's kind of every single artist's story. And I mean, I love to tell when people ask, what's your best advice for, you know, upcoming musician or anybody? I think it's that you have to be able to rise from the failures is what makes a successful person. Because everybody's gonna have mishaps, they're gonna fall down. And it's, you know, the people that continuously pick themselves up that are the ones that are gonna find their voice, make it, whatever you want to call it.

I mean, I'm pretty sure there were people who, you know, had their doubts. As I said, you know, artists subjective. Some people have an opinion they like about it, and of course they have their— they're entitled to because they're paying their money for it. But, um, you know, I never let that stop me. I've always been able to turn my hate into great and not really accept any, uh, down moments, low peaks as a failure, but yet a lesson to teach me how to be better, stronger, more wise, and resilient. You know, I really have never gotten into the negative stuff. I just don't really absorb it.

As an entrepreneur, there actually is a definition of failure, and a lot of people ask me, when do you move on? When do you, when do you stop what you're doing and say maybe this isn't working out? And I like to say, well, first you have to believe in— if you keep believing in what you're doing, keep going. But there's one other criteria. If keeping going means you are going to do severe physical or mental damage to yourself, then you should move on.

Yeah.

And my last company, I sort of got to that point. Now, it was a success for me. I mean, I ultimately sold it to a large company out of Boston called Akamai. But I was at that point where I'd gone 7 years and it was really hard times. And I knew that if I had kept going in this little blip of success we started to see, if that was a mirage, I knew I would kind of go— I would start to go crazy, like for real. Failure is when— is maybe when at least I feel like I failed when I didn't put everything I had into, into a problem. So really, it goes back to the analogy I made at the beginning is if If you don't put it all out there, if you don't put everything you got into solving the problem, then that's failure.

Overall, that very thumbnail sketch of a very interesting and very inspiring life, what do you think you've learned most? I mean, what would you do differently, in other words?

Do you know, I wouldn't do anything differently because I think getting things wrong is— as we've just talked about, getting things wrong is as important as getting things right. So I wouldn't change anything because actually I have learned a lot, and the thing that I've learned is I know what I value in life. I know what's important to me. I know what I want to spend my time doing. I know the differences that I want to make. And more important, I absolutely know what I don't want to do.

I'm not going to do what everybody else does. I'm just going to do what I want to do because life's too short and I can't live up to other people's expectations. I can only do what I can deliver in this life. So I put that on my wrist to remind me all times, like, trust in self. Um, you know, I all fucked up. Doesn't mean I'm flawless. I made Cop Out and Jersey Girl. So, you know, you can fuck things up, but you can learn from that. You know, there's no such thing as absolute failure except sitting there and not trying. You know, it's like, that's absolute failure. But even if you fail at something, failure is kind of success training because you learn how to do it better the next time. As long as you try again, you're Some people kind of try something, it falls apart, and they walk away.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'd love to know, what did you think of the video? Which clip had the biggest impact on you and why? Leave in the comments below, and I'm gonna join in the discussion. I also want to give a quick shout out to @blackpearls87. Thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and posting that picture on Twitter. I hope you're enjoying it, and I appreciate the support. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.