Are You a Failure?; Steve Sims

Now this one’s actually going to be short. This one’s going to be a quickie and if anyone out there is saying, “Well, quickies aren’t very good,” then they’ve obviously never had a decent quickie in their life, but I was actually going through an audit of my social circle. I’ve actually spoken before about go through to people that you’re closest to and evaluate. Are they adding value to you? Are you adding value to them? As long as you keep on top of this and maintain it, you can really build strong relationships, but something came up as I was going through and I know it sounds vicious to do, but I want to be the best person I can to the relationships I have. So the audit ends up being on you.

But I was looking at the people that I’m close with. I was looking at the clients I attract. I was looking at my consulting clients, my friends, my mentors, people that I relate to, people that are in my world. And while the ages are different, the demographics are different. Even where geographically they are, they all have strikingly one thing in common. They’re all failures. Now, this actually sounds like an insult to say, but it’s not. See the bottom line of it is, you can only be hugely successful when you’ve actually failed at stuff. Why? Because that’s what empowers you to go on. Those that fail at something and go, “Oh God, that didn’t work for me. I’m dumb.” Well, they’re not really entrepreneurs, are they? Okay, because entrepreneurs, we get spat on, laughed at, ripped off, [inaudible 00:01:31], you know, this is what we do.

It’s not the smart decision for a career, but it’s the one that we choose to take because quite simply, that’s the shape of our spots. That’s what makes us who we are. That’s what an entrepreneur is. And I noticed these entrepreneurs and how they failed and I looked into them deeply. In fact, some of them I even called and I said, “Look, what are your three biggest failures?” Most of the time we don’t remember them because we learned from them and we move on. They’re not failures, they’re education in what not to do. Now personally, when I look at the world today of our Insta-gurus, I want to know someone’s failed. I don’t want a diet book from a supermodel. I want a diet book from one of the fattest buggers in the planet that’s now built like bloody David and has done it through hard work and knows how to do it.

I want that person. I want to know what the source of the conversation is and the education. That’s what I want. Sadly in today we look at the shine over the substance and I’m always looking at the substance and I got around to a couple of weeks ago and I thought to myself, “Oh, I’ve got another podcast coming out, what am I going to talk about?” And then this audit happened and then funny enough, during the chat with one of my clients and going, “Hey, what’s your failures?” He turned around to me and he said, “Well you list the best failures in your book.” And I suddenly realized I did.

So this is going to be a read along with Sims episode. You see, I’m going to read an excerpt from my book to you. Why? Because you need to learn from me. You need to be empowered by, you need to understand it, so the next time that you fall over and the next time that you lose money and the next time a contract doesn’t go well, a pitch, a sales promotion, trying to raise money, anything that you’re doing goes wrong.

Think of the company that you are in. I’ll give you a few of them. Stephen King threw away his first novel, Carrie, after it was rejected 30 times. His wife actually fished out the trash bin. Henry Ford went broke five times and was advised to stay out of the auto industry because he didn’t have the money or the know-how. Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was four. He didn’t read until he was seven and teachers said he wouldn’t amount to anything. He’s actually reported as that. James Dyson had 5,126 non-working bagless vacuum prototypes and had run out of savings. He’s now worth over four point $4.5 billion. USC rejected Steven Spielberg three times. Walt Disney got turned down over 300 times for financing for Walt Disney World and he was also fired from a newspaper for having no original ideas. Steve Jobs removed from his company, Michael John Jordan cut from his high school basketball team.

Harrison Ford after American Graffiti went back to doing carpentry before this little movie picked him up called Star Wars. The list goes on. Mark Twain went bankrupt. Bill Gates, college dropout. The Beatles was rejected five times from record companies saying, “Talentless.” It just goes on and on and on. The list of failures, you can bring it up to the Elon Musks of the world. They don’t allow rejection and failure to define them, they allow it to refine them.

Now, it’s a big old list, I’m not going to read the whole list in the book. You know, if by now you haven’t got Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen, what’s wrong with you? But anyway, you are in good company by how you fail, but you’re only in good company when you use how you fail to propel yourself to success. I urge you not to look at failure as a bad thing, but look at it as an education and look at it as, “Okay, I’m here now. Therefore, the next thing I do must be the successful one.”

Anyway, I want to empower you. I want you to be invigorated. Look at the people around you. Look at those that have failed and made something of themselves and think yourself, “I’m all right. These are just my badges that I’ve got to earn so that I can get where I need to be.” I wish you a prosperous and fruitful day. Do something powerful, impact yourself, impact others, and I will see you on the next episode.

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