I’ve Got to Fail to Succeed? Whaaat?
My last name is Wynne (win) and because of that, I’ve always wanted to win especially when I was younger. I can recall in 4th grade I would finish a test first and look around at all those that were still sweating it out. Maybe because it was in the 4th grade I figured out all the answers were in the back of the chapter in bold. I was a tomboy and wanted to be the best at all sports. Swimming was my thing until I wanted to look cute and chlorine wreaked havoc on my hair so I stopped swimming. I played baseball, tag football and learned how to throw a spiral pretty good, track, kickball, tetherball, etc. Failing was not an option I had to Wynne.
When I got into the business world at age 16 hourly jobs were simply not enough. Every time I would get a “good job” I’d be excited until I got the cheezy paycheck and I knew that I needed more. Not that I was a money grubbing feen, but I knew I could earn more. I was already doing my own taxes but started to pay attention to how Uncle Sam got his cash first and decided the only way to get my cash first was to start a business.
So I decided that I would start a business at age 20 and I’ve been creating businesses ever since. Not to say I’ve earned a lot of cash because on some levels I haven’t, however, I was never truly consistent and consistency is the key to business success. I would create a new business almost every other month because I wanted to win and didn’t understand that it takes time for a business to grow.
The word “failure” has never ever been a part of my vocabulary and it’s hard to understand that I have to fail before I can truly succeed. Lately, I’ve heard Darren Hardy of Success Magazine say “failure is good”, Michael Jordan honors failure as with many millionaires and billionaires. They all say failure is good because you grow. It makes sense, but I guess I’ve been seeing it from a different view. Whenever something didn’t work out I didn't use the word “fail” I would just get past the blockage and keep going and apparently grow and “keep going” is what you do when you fail.
Robert Kiyosaki the writer of Rich Dad Poor Dad says that most people are afraid to make mistakes and failing, but when you make mistakes you grow. He says most people play it safe and the reason they’re poor is they haven’t failed so they haven’t learned anything. checkout his video interview.
It’s still hard to tell myself that I must fail first to succeed but I understand that what they’re really saying is, you must fall down a few times, dust yourself off and keep going. That’s what I do and man is there a lot of dusting and it never stops and I guess — I like that!
