Fail, With Enthusiasm. Success Will Follow.
I don't love "quoting" others, just never been a fan of it. The reason is that I see too many people making "inspirational" quotes and memes without offering any useful information or opinion.
Thus I am going to put my own spin on what I feel is one of the most famous quotes on failure, which for those of you that are new to business, is an important and very much REQUIRED element of running a business (and this holds true for the offline world, as well as the online world...same thing).
Winston Churchill once made the following statement.
"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."
For some, this may be a little cliche. If you have reached any level of success in business, you will see this much more than a cliche, rather a truism to running a business.
I have been in the affiliate marketing and online business world for 17 years full time now. I can tell you from personal experiences, and from a great deal of personal failure in business, that this statement is at it's core what has led me to success.
I fail, regularly. I have failed today, yesterday, and the day before. In fact, the business that I feel Carson and I are operating, or any business I have operated prior to Wealthy Affiliate has been one big collection of failures.
In all reality, if you look hard inwards at your business and activities, you will see all sorts of failures. Just a few examples here, to give you some perspective as to what I am talking about.
- Perhaps you are not getting any traffic. That is a failure.
- Perhaps you are not good a building website, that is a failure.
- Perhaps you cannot write a 1,000 word article in under an hour, and that is a failure. (just as an aside, I am 7 minutes into writing this article and at 340 words).
- Perhaps you published a post that didn't rank right away?
- Perhaps you lost some rankings with Google's latest "core" algorithm update.
- Perhaps you don't create enough content.
- Perhaps the content you create isn't as good as it could be.
- Perhaps you get traffic, but don't convert as well as you like.
- Maybe you suck at creating graphics.
- Perhaps you don't know enough about a particular topic.
- Perhaps you feel like you don't know anything about creatinga business.
- The list could go on forever
To some, these may be completely demotivating...maybe to the point of making you want to "give up" in your journey to building a business. To others, these so called failures are dealt with in an enthusiastic manner. The realization that any one of these things can either be completely overcome or improved upon is an exciting proposition to those that have a successful mindset and approach to business.
Not a single one of these things are unattainable. If you don't know how this business works, learn it. You have a plethora of education here at WA. If you don't know how to write content for your website, then WRITE. That is how you get better. If you don't convert well, then make some adjustments to your conversion process and content on your website to convert better.
With every failure, come up with a resolve. This can be the case for anything in life. If you are struggling in a relationship, if you are struggling to get in shape, treat those as mere temporary failures. Approach these failures with enthusiasm and the idea that they are temporary stepping stones and building blocks for your success.
Guess what will happen if you do this? You will achieve success. That is the reality.
Those that approach any failure in life, in business, as a "end" to your progress, will never achieve success. Those that approach these with excitement and enthusiasm knowing that they are in the process of figuring something new out, are those that are going to be vastly successful.
Just a few thoughts I have on failure...from experience.
Recent Comments
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I remember someone saying that Failure is like feedback. You just learned how to do it the wrong way and now it’s time to try another way - which again, may be another failure. Hence keep trying and failing your way to success.
It was a truly interesting way to look at it. Thanks for your insights Kyle. I always value those who have the experience and the selflessness to share their journeys. Cheers
I love it Kyle - thank you.
Sorry - but I just have to say it.
"Come fail with us." I was going to add here in WA. But I feel that would be a disservice to the platform - though applicable in terms of your post.
I am continuing to fail myself in so many small ways every day, but absolutely love the platform you and Carson have created.
I learn many new things every day. I am not leveraging this knowledge as well as I should be, but I still have enthusiasm for the process and the community here.
Thank you both for that.
Hi Kyle,
It takes character to get back up and keep trying after failure and this builds resilient people. If it only takes you 7 minutes for creating a great elevator pitch and having a part of so many people moving forward on successful pathways. Imagine your writing capabilities, holy moly. It is a great privilege to work with this group and get your guidance.
Do you know if self host is the way to get a medium load of plugins to not slow down my site? It is getting slower I think from taking off EWW lazy load. But I am not sure how to balance the plugins to have what I need and speed as well.
Surely working on the bullets you listed are a great way to have impact on a larger level. These are all core concepts to build and optimize. Thank you for a great walkthrough!
Hi Becca,
Wondering what you're meaning by self host? Is that something that you're hosting outside of WA?
Love this post from Kyle. Inspiring!
Cheers Andrew
Hey Andrew,
Kyle said it will soon be an option to self host through Wealthy Affiliate. I am not sure the details of it though. I love it, too!💝 he always has inspired me
The 12 points you mentioned are real, they are facts.
I can go over failures and succeed but to wait for the money to sustain life is really a challenge.
Let's say, I invest an amount for my business because I am hoping it will have the return of investments (ROI) so I have something for food.
But I have been starving myself and my family. I have tightened my belt so much. The $47 is fifty times our Philippine currency so it's a lot.
I am enjoying my stay with WA because I learned and is learning a lot and if possible I don't like to quit.
When will this failure end?
Sorry for the feeling I expressed but I'm hard-pressed.
Thank you Kyle for the great post.I had experienced failures in my journey to success.I had been conned online and mocked by my friends.I lost my son through hydrocephalus. However, I never give up and let these circumstances defeated me.I looked at them as positive things that help me change the course of my life.
Right now as speaking I'm still experiencing failures and weakness but I used them as tools to help guide me on my journey. Failures to me is a good thing to help me challenge myself within on my journey at Wealthy Affiliate.
The cause of this is our belief system. Always believing that something won't work out because you have failed a number of times are going to discourage you from doing it.
Failure is a part of every human life, for a certain no one can achieve success if they don't have a taste of Failure. Failing is what helps us get more prepare for the proposed success. Thank you for this post, Kyle. it inspires me and it reached me at the right time.
David.
Well said Kyle. Overcoming the disappointment of knowing something you worked hard on didn’t work or something you were excited about and thought you did a great job on didn’t produce for you is difficult. First your heart sinks a little, then you get pissed and then I think the next logical human reaction is to say, this just isn’t for me. The fact is though, if you transcend that pain and view it from an objective perspective, you can extract the negative energy and channel it into something positive by taking the position that it won’t defeat you. Then you can shake it off, get some sleep and get back at it while learning from whatever the reason for the failure was.
This is gold Kyle. I think everyone should read this at least once as it really is the truth and something that separates those who (ultimately) succeed or fail. As in whether or not you give up or keep going forward regardless of these "failures" that are inevitable and happen to all of us.
This is a great post for getting motivated, even tho the community here at WA is full of encouragement and positive minds you can still feel alone in creating your business. That’s where reading something like this can really lift your spirits and put you back on track.
I always loved this saying; it’s better to try and fail, rather than fail to try.
Life is all about challenges and how you as an individual overcome them and move forward.
Thanks for taking time to write and share this post.
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Hi Kyle, writing something "not original" does not diminish its ultimate value. It's enough for anyone to read the article, and say to himself, "that's niew, that's true, that's good, that is something I need to incorporate into my everyday life" to give it ultimate value.
Good job on your initiative and contribution, and thank you.
Best wishes,
Avraham Schwartz