Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Learn From Failures, Too

One of the ways to be successful is to model from the successful people in business, entertainment, government, and sports. Bill Gates, John Chambers, Tom Cruse, The Rolling Stones, Benjamin Franklin, Hilary Clinton, Ronald Regan, Lucile Ball, Michael Jordan, and the list goes on. Learn from these successful people how they achieved success. Use them as models, as guidelines, as sources for knowledge and experience. Follow their examples and success shall come in time.

Another way to be successful is to learn from the successful people’s failures. In Bill Gates’ book “Business @ The Speed Of Thought,” Gates devoted half of a chapter on failures. He shared his failed businesses and what he learned from the failures. Observe your daily life and take note how other people live their lives, how businesses conduct daily operations, and how you live your life. Find your failures and learn from them. (And be aware of your successes and innovate your successes.)

For example, in my last company, in 1997, the company was supposed to have a new database. It’s 2007 and the company has a database which still has problem. The company went through at least 7 failed databases. The company should have learned something in the 10 years.

Keep your eyes open, ears listening, nose smelling, hands feeling, and mouth tasting success and failures. Take your successes and innovate them. Take your failure and turn them to successes.

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