How To Deal With Failure At Internet Marketing – Mike Filsaime Style! © Gideon Shalwick

What would you do if I told you that I would give you $1,000,000, but with one condition…

You had to fail at least 10,000 times first!

Would you have the guts to do it?

Would you have the guts to go through life for weeks, months and even years, appearing to the outside world as a failure just so that you could get your hands on the $1,000,000?

Interesting question, isn’t it?

And I think it’s perhaps a question that budding new entrepreneurs don’t always consider at the start. Granted, there are a few of us who actually strike it lucky and become successful very quickly. But for the majority of successfully people out there, it took years before they got to a breakthrough point in their careers.

In his amazing book, Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about this same breakthrough point in the companies that he researched. Up to that point, all of the “Great” companies did not really appear to be anything special at all, but once they got to a certain stage, there was nothing to stop them.

But one of the most important things in business is how you deal with failure. Because it’s definitely going to come, whether you like it or not. Like Mike Filsaime said in today’s interview:

“It’s not how hard you fall; it’s how high you bounce up again.”

Now, let’s get back to the question at the start of this article – would you be willing to fail 10,000 times if it meant that you’d get $1,000,000 in cold hard cash at the end? I wonder what most people would do. I wonder if they’d actually be willing to sacrifice a big part of their lives and even to endure some ridicule and humiliation from friends, relatives, and other baboons who don’t really understand what entrepreneurship is about.

The first time I told someone close to me about a new business venture that I wanted to get into, they simply freaked out and didn’t know how to deal with it. Instead of the encouragement that I expected, I got a mouthful of negative talk and basically saying that it would never work.

But that seems to be the norm for budding new entrepreneurs.

No one really understands what you’re doing. Fair enough too, because as an entrepreneur, you’re literally going “where no man has gone before”. So how could you expect anyone to understand THAT!?

But I digress…

What I really wanted to talk about is how to deal with failure.

Basically, it’s not easy. In fact, it’s probably one of the hardest things to do in life. But here’s a really great way of looking at failure:

See it as a stepping stone to success.

Just think about it for a second. Thomas Edison apparently had 10,000 failed attempts at inventing the light bulb. Just imagine the strength of character that he needed to actually fail 10,000 times before he got the “winning formula”. But he had to fail that many times to figure out all the things that did NOT work. How else, if you’re chartering unknown ground, will you find out? Sometimes it really is just trial and error.

So, see it as a learning process, and enjoy the ride as you go. With failure and pain comes learning, and with learning comes success.

Of course you don’t have to fail 10,000 times before you become a success. There is a shortcut. Here it is:

Simply learn from other people’s failures. That’s why getting a mentor who has failed many times before, but who now is a success, could be such a great asset for your journey to success. If it’s a good mentor, they’ll tell you about all the mistakes they have made in the past and caution you not to do the same, thus saving you heaps of time and possibly even thousands of dollars. That kind of education is certainly worth paying for.

In a way, failure in business can be compared to riding a bike. At first, it’s really hard, and you keep on falling off, grazing your knees and the palms of your hands. And that can be very painful as a kid. But as you learn, you’ll eventually have some “mini” successes – you’ll be able to balance for 3 seconds just by yourself without the help of your dad…before you fall off again.

But those little successes need to be celebrated, because it’s through those successes, however small, that you build confidence and teach you’re brain how to become successful over time. Then as you keep on learning, before you know it, you can ride the bike successfully without even thinking about it.

It’s the same with anything else. You’ve just gotta pick yourself up again, and keep going.

Here’s to your “failing” to success!

Gideon Shalwick

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