To brace us for entrepreneurship we studied the lives of well known entrepreneurs who had to overcome great odds and failure before achieving success. I wrote about Thomas Edison:
Often, the hardest endeavors in life are also the most rewarding. The reward is won through hard work, and often many struggles and setbacks. Building a successful business is no stranger to this principle. In fact many of business’ most well known Entrepreneurs have struggled with failure until they finally achieved success. Steve Jobs was fired from his own business, Milton Hershey started three unsuccessful candy companies before his success, and even Walt Disney was fired and told he lacked creativity. What these men have in common is not how they fell down in failure, but how they picked themselves back up again and again in order to achieve success. What makes all the difference is not how you fail, but how you handle that failure. One such failure was Thomas Edison. The man who failed over 1,000 times before finally inventing (or re-creating) a successful light bulb.
One thing that we can learn from Thomas Edison is he never dwelt on the past mistakes. When we hear about Thomas Edison we almost always hear about the light bulb because that is his big success. We don’t hear about his failures, and he had plenty of them. Despite all of his failures however, Edison remained optimistic. When questioned about all of his failures his response was, “I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”
This response shows me that he looked upon his failures in a positive light. When we realize that we will have failure, or low points in our careers, we can become better by learning from those mistakes. Even if we fail a thousand, or 10,000 times, that one success can more than make up for those failures.
Having a clear vision of my goals and how to reach those goals can help with this. A well detailed business plan can help with this. When we know where we are driving the bus, we can easily get back up after each speed bump, or failure. Thomas Edison knew the light bulb could work (he wasn’t the only one to do it), and knew he could find a way to make it work. If he hadn’t made it a success someone else surely would have; but he didn’t give up. By knowing what we are after and having confidence in that vision we are empowered to press on regardless of any failed attempts. For Edison, it was the light bulb. We can learn from him, and from many great entrepreneurs the quality of perseverance. With it we can overcome all things.$100 Challenge Update
My final project has exploded over the past week that it has been online. The homemade crossbow was a huge success. I'm hoping the wind doesn't die down, but carries on in time. Today it has seen 30,000 views in just a week. I am glad I have taken on affiliate marketing for this project. I have learned a great deal from it. This week we submitted a powerpoint presentation on our projects. Here is a link to mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWCzp3pf5lQ
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