Success and Failure

With the passing last evening of the visionary Steve Jobs, there has been much discussion about what made him special, and different than most leaders. Jobs had no college degree, but rather emphasized innovation and seeing things as they could and perhaps should be, rather than merely how they are. He introduced his company from the basement of his parent's home, with little financial backing, and developed it into the technology company with perhaps the most sought out products and methods.

However, perhaps what made Jobs so tremendously successful is that he refused to accept failure as an option, and visualized ways that he could make things better. He saw things as they could be, and prioritized how he could make a difference. In President Obama's official statement, he mentioned the ultimate compliment to Jobs was that a large percentage of the public first learned of Job's passing on a device developed or brought about by Jobs. Is that not the ultimate degree of success?

Rejection can come in many different forms such as rejection from a member of the opposite sex, rejection from a college or university, or having an idea rejected. Adopting a positive mindset will not prevent us from experiencing rejection - rejection is a natural part of life and we have to learn to deal with it. However, it is our frame of mind that determines how we deal with rejection, and this is the vital factor.

If we have dug ourselves a deep dark hole of negativity and we feel trapped and powerless to free ourselves, if we have adopted a negative mindset, then rejection would have an adverse affect on us and subsequently prevent us from achieving. The reason for this is because with a negative mindset, a losing mentality, we would dwell on rejection and so our inner belief would dissolve. Consequently, we would not only fail to better ourselves, but we would also fail to take the necessary action in order for us to achieve whatever it was we were once trying to achieve. Hence a losing mentality will only cause us to dig ourselves even deeper into our dark hole of negativity and subsequently set ourselves up for more rejection.

On the other hand, if we have a positive mindset and we are in control of our life then rejection would not affect us at all; we would keep on going and so would eventually succeed. This is because, despite the rejection, with a winning mentality we would maintain positive beliefs about ourselves and what we want and we would continue to strive towards whatever we were trying to achieve; we would be persistent and constantly seek to better ourselves. Therefore, by adopting a winning mentality, we are setting ourselves up for success.

These two simple exercises will clarify your failure template:

1)Take a few moments to jot down some times you remember failing and how that experience impacted you. How did the adults or friends in your life support (or not support) you through this experience? What feelings emerged through this failure? Did you try again, or did you give up? Do those past failures continue to play out in your present willingness to try new things? The more you know about the details of these experiences, the more helpful you can be when you engage your child in processing their own failures.

2) It can be helpful to have your child talk about their failure. Have them write or tell a little story about their failure from a 3rd person perspective as if it had happened to a fictional character and what that character could do following the failure. What was learned from the failure and how might it help them in the future? Help the child figure out their next step... anything but giving up.

Giving up is the only true failure. What failures have you transformed to success?