FAIL YOUR WAY TO THE TOP

Jesus Christ didn't start his ministry until he was 30. He was ridiculed, rejected, betrayed, tortured, and finally executed. He never had a formal education, never owned a home, was homeless, never owned a business, never had a family, was never elected to a position of authority, never acquired any wealth. He suffered daily failure and rejection.
If someone tried to put Him on your board of directors today, you'd probably scream, "Get this loser out of my office before I call the police on both of you."
Another loveable loser was Abraham Lincoln. He was driven out of his family home at 7, lost his mother at 9, lost his clerk job at 22, went into debt at 23, was turned down for marriage by his long-time girlfriend. His marriage to his wife, Mary Todd, was deeply troubled. At 41, he lost his 4-year-old son. At 45, he lost a Senate election. At 47, he was defeated for the vice presidential nomination. At 49, he ran for the Senate again and lost. At 51, he became president of the United States. He failed his way to the top.
When I was kid, our family took vacations to Lake Tahoe, which was also the setting for our favorite television show, "Bonanza," based on a widowed rancher and his three sons, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe, the latter played by Michael Landon. It was only many years later that I learned Landon's real-life story. His father was a Jew who hated Catholics and his mother was an anti-Semitic Catholic who used to beat Michael with a coat hanger. Not surprisingly, he was a bed-wetter and suffered from facial tics and involuntary gulping sounds. Finally, he found a measure of self-worth when he discovered he could throw the javelin farther than any of classmates. He even grew his hair like Samson, believing his hirsuteness was the source of his great strength. At USC, some mean-spirited kids cut his leonine locks, and his javelin throws receded by an average of 30 feet. He soon found himself unloading freight at a manufacturing plant - until a Hollywood talent scout spotted him and asked him to audition for the part of Ben Cartwright's youngest son on what would become America's favorite television western.
People who become great just don't wear failure well. They just keep failing forward all the way to the top, using setbacks as stepping stones. If they fall down, they don't stay down. Like Thomas Watson, the legendary founder of IBM, they believe the formula to success is to double their rate of failure. In their world, the person who makes the most mistakes wins.
They embrace mistakes as glorious failures - the ultimate learning opportunities. When Simon Ranco, the lead developer of the nation's ICBM system, saw the first ballistic missile rise about six inches off the launching pad before toppling over and exploding, he turned to an Air Force general and said, "Well, Benny, now that we know the thing can fly, all we have to do is improve its range a bit."
When Thomas Edison saw his science lab go up in smoke, he saw the fire as a long overdue house-cleaning. "There go all my mistakes," he quipped as he watched his factory burn down.
Successful losers fail with an uncanny enthusiasm. If they have a stack of rejected screenplays in front of them, they interpret it to mean, they're one step closer to having one accepted.

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