Did you know that there is key decision to become successful?

Are you the type of person that wants to succeed but hates to fail?

Have you have bought a vacuum recently? What type did you buy? I ask that because there is a lot of models and types available. We purchased a Dyson vacuum some time ago because of some of the advertising we had seen over the years. And no this is not a paid ad for Dyson.

What you will find out in this blog is what I consider is a very unique success story. I state that because Sir James Dyson as he is called now, spent many years developing his bag-less vacuum that eventually made him famous. But did you know that he had more than 5,000 failed prototypes (in fact the total was 5,126 versions). Even after he had come up with the right design major manufacturers rejected him.

How he kept going and not quitting is the true success story. In an interview conducted by Nadia Goodman in Entrepreneur magazine back in 2012, Sir James stated that; “Failure is interesting — it’s part of making progress. You never learn from success, but you do learn from failure.” How many of your reading this, really live that way?

This is where resilience comes into play. We need to be resilient when it comes to the noise of our society. This noise has many voices, like;

• ‘Why do you think you can do that?’
• ‘Don’t you know where you came from?’
• ‘You’ll never amount to anything.’

Of course, all of these types of comments influence us to some degree. Then there is the negative self-talk, like:

• ‘I am not smart enough to do that.’
• ‘I don’t have the patience for that.’

So, what was it that helped Sir James in overcoming the negativity that the World gave him?

In this same interview he pointed out; “We have to embrace failure and almost get a kick out of it. Not in a perverse way, but in a problem-solving way. Life is a mountain of solvable problems and I enjoy that.”

Let look at this line by line; “We have to embrace failure and almost get a kick out of it.” Wow, just think about it, embracing failure and nearly enjoying it. Some of you may be saying that he is one sick puppy. But no! I believe that he had a powerful motivator deep in himself, called a clear and precise objective. It was the ‘why’ he wanted to do what he was doing.

Then he stated; “Not in a perverse way, but in a problem-solving way.” In other words, he was not a sadist that liked impacting his life with problems. He truly enjoyed problem-solving. And when you think about 5,126 versions that failed, he took problem solving into a science, so he could appreciate what he was learning. To me this is all about being adaptable.

His final comment that I will address is; “Life is a mountain of solvable problems and I enjoy that.” Isn’t that a powerful statement that we can learn from? Yes, life has many problems in it, and he looked forward to solving them in joy.

Before I conclude I’ll give you another Sir James Dyson quote; “You mustn’t be worried about what people will say about you. If you want to do something different, you’re going to come up against a lot of naysayers.” He went on to say; “Big companies tend not to take risks, so there’s a big opportunity for entrepreneurs to take them and march on competitors. Business is constantly changing, constantly evolving. You’ve got to try things out.”

In conclusion, answer these questions;

• Are you overly concerned about what people say about you and or your service?
• When was the last time you took a stand when no one else supported you?
• Are you reluctant to take risks?

The answers you gave, tell you how much you hate to fail, thus your success won’t be as good as it could have been.