Learning From Loss to Lead Better

I (Cindy) don’t know a successful person that hasn’t learned from their losses in order to come back better than before.

It took Thomas Edison 10,000 attempts to perfect the light bulb.  Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper job for lacking creativity.  Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team for lacking talent.

Elon Musk, as he started a career path, applied to tech companies thinking he would especially love to work at Netscape, but was rejected over and over.  He founded an online searchable phone directory called Zip2, struggling in the early years when investors had no interest.  In 1996, they received much needed investment but he was soon ousted as the CEO of the company and given a much smaller role.  Musk eventually managed to remove the CEO who replaced him when the newer CEO did not agree with the vision and principles for the company.

Elon went on to co-found PayPal, which was soon voted “the worst business concept of the year!”  We know PayPal is a thriving success now but they have had many bumps in the road.  He sold PayPal for a gain of 35 million dollars.

As he started Tesla, most of the auto industry thought he would fail spectacularly and they hoped he would fail.  This is apparent in many articles and interviews. In 2008, during the stock market and economic crisis, it looked like their predictions would come true when Tesla stock went to the brink of collapse.  Musk decided to bankrupt himself and used his personal fortune (35 million) he earned from the sale of PayPal, to keep the company going.  Two years later, he was officially broke. Here he was 40 years old, with a very large family and officially broke. A short period after the two-year timeline, Tesla became incredibly profitable and is worth 804 Billion today in stock and had over 81 billion in revenue last year.

I could talk about SpaceX and, frankly, Twitter as well.  What about Starlink?  What an amazing service to people in the Amazon, in Ukraine, in countless remote countries and villages that did not have communication avenues before, like many do now. 

Musk is said to be the Thomas Edison of our time and I’m on board with that!

In interviews, when asked what helps him succeed, he credits learning from every loss, viewing failure as knowledge gained to produce a better product, independent thinking to produce the necessary results for success, working on a personal passion is a driving force, making adjustments when necessary, not to be obsessed with a particular product but more so with a product that provides a clear solution to the end-user. 

Don’t shy away from losses.  Too often, losses are avoided, or put in a box and we don’t learn from them -  at least at the level we could have. 

In an art form, failure is just as important as success.  A dead end is just as important as an accomplishment. Don’t get away from the idea that failure is your friend.

As we lead ourselves and others, failure is a part of the success we obtain. And in having success, remember humility will keep us grounded when the failures turn into successes.