The One Thing Successful People Never Do
Success comes in all shapes and
colours. You can be successful in your job and career but you can equally be
successful in your marriage, at sports or a hobby. Whatever success you are
after there is one thing all radically successful people have in common: Their
ferocious drive and hunger for success makes them never give up.
Successful people (or the people
talking or writing about them) often paint a picture of the perfect ascent to
success. In fact, some of the most successful people in business, entertainment
and sport have failed. Many have failed numerous times but they have never
given up. Successful people are able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off
and carry on trying.
I have collected some examples that
should be an inspiration to anyone who aspires to be successful. They show that
if you want to succeed you should expect failure along the way. I actually
believe that failure can spur you on and make you try even harder. You could
argue that every experience of failure increases the hunger for success. The
truly successful won't be beaten, they take responsibility for failure, learn
from it and start all over from a stronger position.
Let's look at some examples,
including some of my fellow LinkedIn influencers:
Henry Ford - the pioneer of modern business entrepreneurs and the founder
of the Ford Motor Company failed a number of times on his route to success. His
first venture to build a motor car got dissolved a year and a half after it was
started because the stockholders lost confidence in Henry Ford. Ford was able
to gather enough capital to start again but a year later pressure from the
financiers forced him out of the company again. Despite the fact that the
entire motor industry had lost faith in him he managed to find another investor
to start the Ford Motor Company - and the rest is history.
Walt Disney - one of the greatest business leaders who created the
global Disney empire of film studios, theme parks and consumer products didn't
start off successful. Before the great success came a number of failures.
Believe it or not, Walt was fired from an early job at the Kansas City Star
Newspaper because he was not creative enough! In 1922 he started his first
company called Laugh-O-Gram. The Kansas based business would produce cartoons
and short advertising films. In 1923, the business went bankrupt. Walt didn't
give up, he packed up, went to Hollywood and started The Walt Disney Company.
Richard Branson - He is undoubtedly a successful entrepreneur with many
successful ventures to his name including Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Music and
Virgin Active. However, when he was 16 he dropped out of school to start a
student magazine that didn't do as well as he hoped. He then set up a
mail-order record business which did so well that he opened his own record shop
called Virgin. Along the way to success came many other failed ventures
including Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Clothes, Virgin Vie, Virgin cards,
etc.
Oprah Winfrey - who ranks No 1 in the Forbes celebrity list and is
recognised as the queen of entertainment based on an amazing career as iconic
talk show host, media proprietor, actress and producer. In her earlier career
she had numerous set-backs, which included getting fired from her job as a reporter
because she was 'unfit for television', getting fired as co-anchor for the 6
O'clock weekday news on WJZ-TV and being demoted to morning TV.
J.K. Rowling - who wrote the Harry Potter books selling over 400 million
copies and making it one of the most successful and lucrative book and film
series ever. However, like so many writers she received endless rejections from
publishers. Many rejected her manuscript outright for reasons like 'it was far
too long for a children's book' or because 'children books never make any
money'. J.K. Rowling's story is even more inspiring because when she started
she was a divorced single mum on welfare.
Bill Gates -co-founder and chairman of Microsoft dropped out of Harvard
and set up a business called Traf-O-Data. The partnership between him, Paul
Allen and Paul Gilbert was based on a good idea (to read data from roadway
traffic counters and create automated reports on traffic flows) but a flawed
business model that left the company with few customers. The company ran up losses
between 1974 and 1980 before it was closed. However, Bill Gates and Paul Allen
took what they learned and avoided those mistakes whey they created the
Microsoft empire.
History is littered with many more
similar examples:
- Milton Hershey failed in his first two attempts to set
up a confectionary business.
- H.J. Heinz set up a company that produced horseradish,
which went bankrupt shortly after.
- Steve Jobs got fired from Apple, the company he
founded. Only to return a few years later to turn it into one of the most
successful companies ever.
So, the one thing successful people
never do is: Give up! I hope that this is inspiration and motivation for
everyone who aspires to be successful in whatever way they chose. Do you agree
or disagree with me? Are there other things you would add to the list of things
successful people never do? Please share your thoughts... From Linkedin
