FAILURE IS A LADDER I succeeded because I failed written by Alex BALOGUN

The greatest limitation of man is not external but internal. There is no prison more dangerous than a wrong mindset: we become what we think. The best way to change someone’s life is to change the way he thinks, (his mindset) and a mindset can only be changed through information. It’s not recorded in the Bible that Jesus gave people money to buy dresses, to pay house rent, or to pay school fees. He gave out information. He changed the way they think: that’s exactly what my articles and books are all about: affecting and detoxicating the way you think for maximum achievements in life.

If you have never failed it means you have never tried something new or you have never done something big. People who introduce new things always experience failure; either the new thing did not work after several attempts or they have to try another one.

Failure should drive and inspire us to become better, to do more and never to give up. Many people take failure as a final destination and then park up.

Success is a well managed series of failures. Everyone on the top today was at the bottom yesterday. And while climbing the ladder of success, they failed and converted the experience of failure to something positive that has brought them to where they are today. 

Failure is not strange to human existence, God is very much aware of it and he has made provisions for failure, in case it occurs.

‘ For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again’ Kjv Proverbs 24 vs 16.

‘No matter how many times you trip them up, God-loyal people don’t stay down long; Soon they’re up on their feet … MSG Proverbs 24 vs 16.

If you fail, you can always succeed again. It is refusing to rise up that makes you a failure. In fact, that’s what makes people notice that you fell. If you fall, get back on your feet immediately, no one may notice, some will even think you simply bent down to pick something. You attract pitiful attention when you remain where you fell but you attract enviable attention when you stand again and succeed. I once had a bike accident with a bike man in Cotonou, Benin on the day of an event I was putting up. I got up so fast and moved away from the scene that people were looking for the passenger, in the next two minutes I was already on another bike. Sometimes life expects us to be on another project or the same poject with a different perspective while we are still crying over the one we lost.

I have experienced failures at different stages of my life, I failed my SSCE exam in the year 2000, I failed it again in 2001, the next time I could afford to write it again was in 2008. I started university at the age of 26, but now I’m a CEO of an international organisation. I failed but it didn’t make me a failure. Failure is simply an event and not a person. (…) An event comes to stick out and not to stick to.

Failure is subjective: There is no standard definition for failure. You decide what is failure for you. To someone, failure means ‘its over’. To another, it means ‘try again’. Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure and the meaning you attribute to failing.

John Maxwell said: ‘Some people see failure as the end of their journey’. Once you see it that way, you will loose every opportunity that may come your way to succeed again. People who have chosen to see failure differently, they go ahead to make the most of it; they attain astounding successes that make it hard to believe that they ever failed. Failures are life affairs/events, they may occur without your permission, but being a failure is a choice, success won’t come without your decision. Failure has the power to stick to you but not without your consent. That same power can be turned around to succeed in life. Successful people have all failed at doing something but have never considered themselves as failures. Failure should not keep you from moving forward, but before moving, you have to decide it.

Have you ever seen failure written on those who have failed in the past? Is it written on their forehead? It’s written no where on you. You are the one announcing it by your behaviour. It has come to pass. If you don’t allow your past to pass, you will soon pass away with your past. Some people even have a diary where they write all their negative past, you have time. Some use a high percentage of their memory to keep their negative past. So how will you remember your goals when the major part is used to hold on to the past. Don’t waste your time writing your regrettable past, focus on writing your glorious future.

Thinking backward is harder than thinking forward. Memory is more tasking than imagination. It is said that “the eye that cries does not see”. So I say the eye that cries does not see opportunities, and regret is a total waste of time.

Check out your eyes, they are before you not behind you, not even one is at the back. God is saying ‘you don’t need to see what is past. Let it go’. Check out your nose, facing front not back, you don’t need smell your past, keep smelling your big future. Check out your feet, they are facing front not backward, you can’t even turn them backward. God is saying “go forward not backward’. Even your neck can only turn sideways not backward. He is saying only look at where you are and where you are going.

Don’t die waiting for Kunle while Bolaji is waiting for you. Kunle is the person or situation that disappointed you, but Bolaji is the next opportunity to rise up and encounter the feeling of plenitude you have been expecting for so long.

Stop looking at the WAEC you failed, go and register for NECO or GCE. You bought shares in TRAVELERS BANK and they travelled with your money. Go and look for STATION BANK, they will station your money. Its not over until you say its over.

Especially if you are a child of God, You are in a match and the opponent is winning but your father is the referee, he won’t blow the whistle until you win.

FAIL – First Attempt In Learning. Failure educates us. It teaches us what we need to do and how to go about it. Failure teaches us our flaws but also shows how to fix them.

Failure should never leave you the same way. It will either leave you flat on the ground or become a stepping stone to your greatness depending on your perspective.

Learn to treat failure as part of the learning process. If you see failure as an end, that makes you a quitter.

Micheal Jordan says: “I have missed more than 9.000 shots in my career. I lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shots and I missed. I have failed over, over and over again in my life and that’s why I succeeded’’.

Ophrah Winfrey: “I don’t think of my self as a poor deprived ghetto girl made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good’’.

Her childhood was frightful and filled with horrible abuses and abject poverty. But like most successful people, Oprah didn’t dwell on stuff like that.

J. K. Rowling: twelve publishers rejected the first manuscript of her series of books ‘’Harry Potter’’. She was broke, divorced and a single mother but she didn’t stop at 3, 5, 8 trials, she kept believing and trying until she got it. Talking on twitter about her experience of rejection, she declared in 2016: ‘I was not going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen’. J. K. Rowling was afraid, but she didn’t let her fear kill her invention. The measure of success can be shown by how many times someone keeps going despite hearing only no. I learnt No means Next Opportunity.

Fear can mean Forget Everything And Run or Face Everthing And Rise, the choice is yours. Do you want to run away or do you want to rise any way.

Mark Cuban, a billionnaire says: “I have learned that it doesn’t matter how many times you failed. You only have to be right once’’.

Japenese proverb says: ‘’Fall down seven times, get up eight’’.

Henry Ford says: “failure provides the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.

Thomas Watson: ‘’The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate’’.

Robbert F. Kennedy: ‘’Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly.

Vince Lombardi: ‘’Its not whether you get knocked down, its whether you get back up’’. And I say “You are only knocked in life, you are not knocked out of life.”

John Wooden once explained that winners make the most errors.

‘’I don’t believe I have special talents but I have persistence. After the first failure, second failure, third failure, I kept trying’’ said Carlo Rubbia, a Nobel Prize Winning Physicist.

‘’Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements’’, said Maria Montessori

STEPS TO CONVERT THE POWER IN FAILURE

1.    Accept rejection: Don’t look for excuses and don’t blame others, just take responsilibility for your actions. Rejection most times mean Re-direction.

2.    See failure as temporary: appropriating failure can make you get stuck. Always see problems as momentary events. It’s not a life long events.

3.    Expect challenges: prepare mentally for each obstacle you face. Don’t manage to escape changes, leave your confort zone, try new and hard things and don’t give up.

4.    Focus on strengths: Concentrate always on what you can do, what you’re good at.

5.    Carry out an assessment when you fail. Look for what went wrong to avoid repeatition. Experience is not the best teacher but evaluated experience John Maxwell said.

6.    Bounce back: Don’t take making mistakes personally. That doesn’t only happen to you. As many other imperfect human being who then make mistakes as you do, you can learn from your faults and wrongs and move forward. Your failure does not make you a failure. Don’t let the failure from outside get inside.

Sometimes the problems you face are beyond your control but you still can take control of what happens within you.

ALEX BALOGUN PROFILE

Alex BALOGUN is a transformational speaker, progress strategist, change catalyst, mind engineer, an author, Business Consultant, Social Entrepreneur and Film Director. He is committed to personal and business development, youth empowerment, leadership training and mentoring. A Republic of Benin based nation builder: he is bilingual, proficient in English and French. He organizes national and international conferences to empower and transform students, professionals and directors of national and multinational organizations.

He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of VIP World (Vision Information People) – an organization promoting personal development, leadership development and entrepreneurship, with the vision to raise exceptional leaders and create a new Africa before 2030 with branches in Cotonou, Calavi, Portnovo, Togo, Rwanda and soon Ghana.

An alumnus of the President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) West Africa; and a recipient of several national and international awards, such as:

-        BENIN INFO 24/7 INT’L – AWARD OF RECOGNITION 2018, for his philanthropic contribution towards Education in Africa.

-        CHANGE AGENTS AFRICA - AWARD OF EXCELLENCE 2017, in recognition of his invaluable impact and contribution to community change.

-        RISE UP NIGERIA INITIATIVE 2016 – AWARD OF RECOGNITION for inspiring and influencing young Nigerians in Diaspora;

-        THE ORANGE GALA AND AWARDS (TOGA) 2015 – RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE IN SOCIETAL IMPACT.

-        GREEN AWARDS 2013 – awarded as the YOUNG ICON of the year 2013 in Republic of Benin.

-        FILM FESTIVAL MOROCCO 2012 – JURY SPECIAL AWARD.

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