Local millionaire on failure
September 15, 2008 By: almostgotit Category: Knoxville, Mike West, Uncategorized, affirmations, competition, success, winningEvery millionaire I’ve met has a longer list of failures than successes. If you’re always winning, then you aren’t competing against people better than you. And that means you never get better.
- Farragut’s Mike West, who with his wife Tiffany recently donated $1 million to UT’s College of Business Administration (Bearden/Cedar Bluff Shopper-News, 9/15/2008)
September 15th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Hey, this guy is stealing from my book!
Just kidding, my book won’t be out until next April.
But he agrees with me (or I him) that successful people fail more than unsuccessful people. Because they try more stuff.
Not to say that failure doesn’t suck. It does.
Hope you are feeling better. Cold all gone?
September 16th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Hmm, if this is the case, then where are my millions?
September 16th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
I think small, daily failures can also be useful. I tell my kids at the school on occasion that ballet teachers LIKE students who fall down in class. This comment always raises eyebrows of course, but I explain that failure—falling down while trying to execute a pirouette, or multiple pirouettes, for example—demonstrates to me that the dancer is working very hard, and not afraid to go for it. And it is so exciting to witness that one moment when it all comes together; the proverbial light bulb comes on and the pirouette (or whatever) happens. I always say, Memorize how that felt, so you can do it again and again; one day it will be second nature.
Success after repeated failures is a beautiful thing indeed.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
@ WG: Yes, failure sucks. But it is also necessary, apparently, and knowing this might, on alternate Thursdays, even make failure suck a tiny bit less…
@Dennis(James): unfortunately, while every millionaire must experience failure, it does not follow that every failure gets to be a millionaire. Damitol.
@ALTOS(Deb): Very lovely extension of my point. (Hey, see what I just did there?!?) Thanks so much for adding it.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Rotten non-commutative Socratic logic!
September 17th, 2008 at 10:56 am
@ Dennis:
September 18th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Its only a failure if you feel the wrath of it. Now if you run a company into the ground, lose people their pensions, and then have the government swoop in to save it, and still get to live in a million dollar home and drive a nice car. No harm (to you), no foul.