Failure can be a leader’s greatest lesson. Why? It can take falling down to help you find the right path to success.
There are many people who have failed miserably in business before eventually hitting it big. And while the initial failure may have been difficult to swallow, each person achieved even better results later on.
Need more proof? Here are a four reasons why it helps to fail.
It shows you what doesn’t work. Sometimes you need to see the bad before the good. You need to know what doesn’t work before you can focus on what does. The best leaders didn’t reach the top of their industries because everything came easy to them. They did so after multiple failures and subsequent lessons learned, which then informed future greatness.
Tomas Gorny, co-founder and CEO of cloud communications giant Nextiva, is a prime example of a successful entrepreneur who has failed, but has also succeeded. Growing up in Poland, Gorny dreamed of the day when he could move to America and take control of his own destiny. After joining a web hosting startup and gaining equity, he soon found himself a multi-millionaire in his early 20’s.
However, after a couple failures during the dot-com boom and bust, he was soon nearly broke. Time and dedication helped Gorny emerge a leader years later, hitting it big with another web hosting company that would eventually sell for roughly $1 billion.
Had Gorny succeeded from day one, he might not have not reached the level of success he’s enjoying today. Nextiva now has 150,000 clients, more than 750 employees and no signs of slowing down.
It helps mold your mindset. The facts are grim: 90% of startups fail, and only 10% survive. Everyone starts in business with the focus and intent to be a part of the 10% that survive. However with such high rates of business failure, this means that the majority of even the best entrepreneurs have seen failure at some point in their careers, and have learned that its how you deal with your failure that shapes your future.
Just because you fail when starting one business doesn’t mean that you will fail when starting another. The best leaders don’t concern themselves with failure. They know that this is part of the game, and that failure is often the first step in achieving success. By changing your approach and altering your mindset, you’re improving yourself with the goal of avoiding a similar fate.
It makes you more grateful for what you have. Building a successful business, life, or relationship is hard. When you’ve struggled early one, it’s true that the successes that follow are more meaningful. Simply put, the harder we have to work for something the less we take it for granted. This is true not only for entrepreneurs, but anyone who’s had to work to get to where they are.
Gratefulness is one of the most essential qualities in building a successful and meaningful life. A study by Harvard showed that there is a strong connection between those who give thanks and overall happiness.
If that’s not enough for you, this article from Forbes goes explains seven ways that gratitude will make you scientifically more motivated.
Failing at anything is never a pleasant experience, but if it makes us happier and more motivated for the rest of our lives, it can’t be that bad can it?
Failure moves you away from your comfort zone. Failure forces you to get out of your comfort zone and to change your way of thinking. A great analogy I like to think of is weightlifting. If you never struggle lifting the weights, you’re lifting too light. Leadership growth is similar to muscle growth, resistance and working to failure makes us stronger.
All top business leaders have experienced failure. They’ve processed what went wrong, took steps out of their comfort zone, and forged ahead. It’s easy to look at business failure as nothing more than a disappointment, but if you walk away after one setback, you will always be hung up on what went wrong.
It’s those who learn from failure who become the best leaders. Every failure, no matter how big or small, has lessons built in. Make sure you never forget this.