Today's Leadership Insight - The Key Ingredient to Success Is...

September 8th, 2009

If you've found any sort of success in your life, there was no doubt some failure along the way.

The biggest problem in life and business is that others focus more on the end result (success) than the struggles and failure it took to reach that end result.

The key ingredient to any success story you see is failure. No successful individual can say they've reached the summit of their efforts without running face-first into the wall a couple of times. Failure is the cost of doing business, and the biggest successes and greatest results come from the failures that preceeded them.

Leaders do two things in the face of failure:

1) They don't let failure define them
2) They ask what they can learn from each failure

You can never expect to grow and develop if you live your life defined by the things that didn't go your way. Life itself is a struggle, and you should never expect things to come easy. If you spend your time dwelling on what would've, could've, and should've happened, you'll constantly be taking steps backwards. Instead, treat each individual failure as a learning experience and evaluate what you learned from the situation.

Today, look at the failures you've had in the past and ask yourself what you can learn from each of them. What positives can you draw from each of those setbacks?

If something isn't going to plan, discover new ways you can get the results you desire. This forces you to expand your comfort zone, and in turn, forces you to become a more effective leader. Without even realizing it, you'll enhance your capabilities simply by applying your already-developed skill sets to another facet of production.

Don't be afraid to screw the pooch once or twice. This is expected. But don't give up when things don't go your way immediately. Stick to your guns, commit yourself to succeeding, and find a positive in every failure that results from your efforts.