Life is a continuous and unstoppable journey, success and failure are by-products and temporary in nature. We have to keep on moving whether we face success or failure.
In fact contrary to common belief the journey ahead of success is more difficult than failure. Because you would like to hold on to your success. It requires huge courage to accept or embrace change after achieving success. Let me give some examples.
Hindustan Motors couldn’t gather the courage to change its successful car model “Ambassador” The Hindustan Ambassador was an automobile manufactured by Hindustan Motors of India, in production from 1958 to 2014 with few improvements and changes over its production lifetime. Since it was testing immense success with Ambassador, it was difficult for it to kill it, and go for a totally new design. This is in spite of knowing the fact way back in the early eighties, that the market expectation is getting changed. But HM wanted to hold back its success, and see what the result was - today HM is no more.
Automobile companies have learned it the hardest way. Today many organization kill their successful model and come up with a new model to keep pace with the market trend of changing design, look, technology, etc. Some of them make cosmetic changes while others go for disruptive innovation and some go for destructive innovation. Feature phones had to be killed to introduce smartphones. You can not hold on to your past, you have to let it go. Bajaj made a timely move to switch from scooter manufacturing to Bike manufacturing. Today it is the most successful bike manufacturing company in the world. You have to embrace change when you are at the top and when you have the resources to invest to bring change. Most people resist change when they are at the top. But when are forced to change, they are mostly down and already facing a resource crunch for taking up any new initiative.
The hugely successful Kodak film is history now. The list is not very short. Nokia Mobile, which was the pioneer and the market leader, is not visible today. Fortune 500 firms 1955 v. 2017: Only 60 remain, thanks to the creative destruction that fuels economic prosperity. The fact that nearly 9 of every 10 Fortune 500 companies existed in 1955 is gone today.
How could the balance 60 manage to survive? Because they showed the courage to continue on the path of progress, keep changing, and keep evolving, which the other 440 companies couldn’t. Do you think these 440 Fortune 500 companies didn’t try? No, they tried, but they tried to hold back the success achieved rather than targeting new avenues of success. You can not keep your age stand still, similarly, you can not maintain your success or failure at the same level. Either you grow or you degrow, there can not be any other alternative.
Whatever success you achieved last year is history, this year you have to set new goals and achieve new success If you were No-1 last year, not necessary you will be No-1 this year. If you want to be, you have to fight a new battle again. No success is final. Records are made to be broken only, every year new records are set.
So if Success is not final, how could failure be final? Unless of course one stops trying. Rather the journey ahead of failure is easy, as no one would like to live with the tag of failure. In fact, failure is the precursor of success. The bigger the goal, the chances are more for failure. You will seldom fail within your comfort zone. But the moment you move out of your comfort zone, do something big, do something not done before- chances are there that you will face failure. So fail early, fail big time. The size of your failure or the size of your obstacle will define the size of your success.
You must have heard of Arunima Sinha. She was thrown out from a running train by some robbers in 2011 while she was resisting them. As a result, her left leg had to be amputated below the knee, she got a steel implant in the right leg, and multiple fractures in the spinal cord. She was a volleyball player in the Indian team. But after this incident, she opted for a much tougher challenge - mountaineering. She is the World's first female amputee to scale Mount Everest, Mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania), Mount Elbrus (Russia), Mount Kosciusko (Australia), Mount Aconcagua (South America), Carstensz Pyramid (Indonesia). On 4th January 2019, she climbed the seventh peak in Antarctica and became the world's first female amputee to climb Mount Vinson
Bill Gates was a Harvard dropout. He co-owned a business called Traf-O-Data, which was a true failure. However, skill and a passion for computer programming turned this failure into the pioneer of famous software company Microsoft, and the then 31-year-old into the world’s youngest self-made billionaire.
Failing in business in 1831, suffering a nervous breakdown in 1836, defeated in his run for president in 1856, Abraham Lincoln was no stranger to rejection and failure. Rather than taking these signs as a motivation for surrender, he refused to stop trying his best.
Regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time, Steven Spielberg is a familiar household name. It is surprising to realize therefore that the genius behind Jaws and E.T. had poor grades in high school, getting him rejected from the University of Southern California three times.
After completing his studies Amitabh moved to the City of Dream Mumbai, where he tried his luck in the film industry, but due to his unconventional look and great height he was rejected by many, Amitabh Bachchan also tried to become a Radio jockey, but due to his heavy voice, he was rejected from there too. Amitabh Bachchan has given 9 flop films back-to-back
The second highest-paid actor in Asia, but his Life story hasn’t been the same way since he started. After completing his schooling, Rajnikanth did various odd jobs such as he joined as a carpenter and collie before getting into transport service as a conductor, But Rajnikant passion was always Acting, and that passion never died
If Failure had been fatal none of these people would have reached the top. But the biggest lesson is not only their success, but their continuity on the path of progress, they kept on evolving.
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