I once came across a story of a man who was struggling: a writer who wasn’t making any money and who once met Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM.

Thomas Watson told him “I know what the secrets of success are, are you interested to know?”.  And the writer said “Definitely, yes.  I want to know the secrets of success”.  Thomas Watson then said  “Double Your Failure Rate”.

Thomas Watson knew that the more attempts one makes at living his dreams, following his passion, and acting quickly on his ideas, the more likely that he will achieve success sooner.

T. Watson knew and the writer quickly learnt from him that failure is just feedback.

So the more you fail, the more feedback you get,
and the more efforts you make,
the higher the chances of you having success even quicker.

The writer worked the idea, leading to him becoming a very successful author.

It should be self-evident but for whatever reason we tend to forget that most of the people who succeeded the most, “failed” the most, or in other words, they kept at it and for them failing-at-doing-something did not equate to them- being-failures, so they kept trying.

Michael Jordan, the most celebrated basketball player ever shot less than 50% (I guess the figure is around 43%) for his career meaning that he missed more shots than those he made.  Almost no one remembers that.  We just remember the successful results he got since they were great.

So it is really simple: If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate. You think of failure as the enemy of success.  Look more closely and you will find that it isn’t at all. Or as Thomas J. Watson put it: The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.

More food for thought:
- Why do you think you are afraid to fail, and hence you become afraid to even experiment?
- What’s the worst thing that might happen to you if you fail?  One of the things I learnt over the years is that when we fail, nothing bad ever happens.  The worst that can happen is a story; the worst that can happen is a thought.

Warmly,
Ahmad