If a book about failures does not sell, is it a success? – Jerry Seinfeld
Failure lies concealed in every success, and success in every failure –Eckhart Tolle
Conventional wisdom says you learn more from your failures. After all, nothing assists an healthy dose of introspection and “lessons learnt” sessions than wondering how to repay the loan you took from your father-in-law. Or being stumped about how to present the latest balance sheet to your investors. After all, conventional wisdom says that to fail, and to fail often, is the right thing to do. Failure is the mother of all success. All inventions. All enterprises.
Nope. In my experience, failure sucks. Big time. And research (biased, of course, since I searched specifically for it!) says that “failure does not lead to success. In fact, startups fail as often during their second startups as first-time entrepreneurs – 20%.”
My company just turned 10 last month. Before I started the Suyati journey, I had 2 failed ventures as an entrepreneur. Within Suyati, I headed a successful content outsourcing unit for 7 years, before moving on to becoming the Communications officer at Suyati. So did I learn more from my failures? Ha ha!