Imagine if a soccer player was in a soccer game, took a shot on goal, missed and said "Ugh, I failed, I quit, I will never be able to score a goal!" and then walked off the field and sat on the bench. You would find that absurd, right?
But do you do that in business? You try to close a deal and "fail" and say this will never work for me. What does a professional athlete do when they are not successful at making an attempt? They analyze and ask themselves, "Why was I not successful at that attempt?" They readjust and try again. After a time, they will succeed. They also know that they must make numerous attempts before they score. A good NHL shooting percentage is a mere 15%. That means the player misses 85 out of 100 attempts! The best shooting percentage in the NHL to date is held by Craig Simpson who had a 23.66% shooting percentage. So even the best "failed" over 75% of the time. But the secret is they do not see that as a failure. They use that to their advantage and learn from it. We too in business need to learn from an unsuccessful attempt and move on to the next attempt.
One of my favorite quotes is from Thomas Edison... “I have not failed 10,000 times—I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” Gee, didn't he "learn his lesson" and move on after his 10th failure, or at least is 100th failure? "Are you that stupid to not realize that this will not work, and the lightbulb is just not possible? After all, you have failed 1000 times now, give it up Thomas!" I am sure that is the advice that many game him. Fortunately, Thomas had the attitude of a winner! He believed in what he was doing and never gave up no matter what others said. Don't you fall into the trap of listening to the naysayers. Keep your self-talk positive. Keep pushing forward in that which you believe in. Failure are only failures if they cause you to give up, otherwise they are just pieces of info on what not to do so you can have a better chance for success the next time!
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