33 experts explain why failure is prerequisite to success

Failure is prerequisite to success

Failure is prerequisite to success is the conclusion Dashun Wang and his colleagues at Northwestern University came to after analyzing 46 years’ worth of venture capital startup investments.

As important, what they also found was not that you fail, but how you fail, and respond, what you learn, and where it leads you from there.

What, mathematically, the Northwestern study found to be true; 33 experts, who have achieved extraordinary success and whose names you will know, explain from their personal experiences.

Failure is an opportunity to find an alternative course

1. For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. – Mary Kay Ash
2. Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again. – Richard Branson
3. Everything you want is on the other side of fear. – Jack Canfield
4. Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success. – Dale Carnegie
5. Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel
6. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill
7. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. – Paulo Coelho
8. Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to always try one more time. – Thomas A. Edison
9. Failure is success in progress. – Albert Einstein
10. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently begin again. – Henry Ford

Success only comes with mistakes

1. It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. – Bill Gates
2. Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of a greater or equal benefit. – Napoleon Hill
3. Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. – Conrad Hilton
4. Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success. – Ariana Huffington
5. Those who try to do something, and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed. – Lloyd Jones
6. I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again. That is why I succeed. – Michael Jordan
7. Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. – Robert F. Kennedy
8. Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. – Helen Keller
9. Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success. – Robert T. Kiyosaki
10. Failures are fingerposts on the road to achievement. – C.S. Lewis

Response to failure makes all the difference

1. The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure. – John C. Maxwell
2. Success is measured by how high you bounce when you hit bottom. – George S. Patton
3. Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing. – Pele
4. The past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it. ― Rafiki (The Lion King)
5. Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time, but it is the ability to resist or use failure that often leads to greater success. – J. K. Rowling
6. Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe. – Sumner Redstone
7. You always pass failure on the way to success. – Mickey Rooney
8. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. – Theodore Roosevelt
9. A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. – B. F. Skinner
10. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. – Henry David Thoreau

Failure is prerequisite to success

1. My grandmother once told me, ‘Don’t let failure go to your heart and don’t let success go to your head. – Will Smith
2. Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success. – Thomas J. Watson
3. Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be. – John Wooden

Do these experts help explain to you that failure is prerequisite is prerequisite. to success? Do any reflect your personal experiences?