Mary Pickford on Failure:
Mary Pickford’s message states “Today is a new day you will get out of it what you put into it. If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, there is always another chance for you. And supposing you have tried and failed, again and again, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call failure, is not the falling down but the staying down. (Eichler Watson, p.158).
As I read this week, Mary Pickford’s words on failure gave me hope. In her article, she declared “you are never beaten unless you give up” (Eichler Watson, p158). How often in life do we fail? Do we always see the lesson in that failure? As a leader, the real leadership lesson here is to have the courage to get up and try again. Failure is an incredibly powerful tool in life. It has a fantastic way of weeding out what we want and what we don’t want. Were you disappointed or were you genuinely heartbroken? It is in the heartbreak you discover what you wanted. Getting up and trying again is never easy, it may not look the same but it will always be worth it.
One of my first experiences failing as a leader was running a small coffee shop. I had thought of this great way to launch a new product. It did not work, I invested too much in the product and couldn’t get a refund from the distributor. I was upset, my team was very angry with me. But the lessons that this failure taught me were invaluable. Eventually, I sold all of that product. The next time we did the launch of a new product it was a collaborative team effort. It was more successful than the first, but if I hadn’t failed I wouldn’t have known what to change for the next time.
In my personal life, I have come to accept my failures as stepping stones between where I am and where I strive to be. Failure is our greatest tool.
Watson, L. E. (1988). Light from many lamps. New York: Simon & Schuster.