Thomas Edison tried more than 10,000 different experiments before he finally demonstrated the first light bulb. Bill Gates’ first company, Traf-O-Data, was a failure.

Michael Jordan was once quoted as saying “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Being an entrepreneur, I’ve failed more times than I can count. I have also had my share of success, but it’s not even close to equal. The failures far outweigh the successes, and I’m sure I have a lot more failure ahead of me.

I’m OK with that because I know that as soon as I stop failing, I’ve stopped trying to succeed. It’s the nature of the business of being an entrepreneur, and of success in general.

Personal experience

For example, my first entrepreneurial endeavor was in modeling. I did runway and high fashion in Europe. I gave it my all because I truly loved it. I had some great success, but also way more rejection.

As a model, you deal with rejection daily - even hourly. I knew that out of 10 casting calls I’d go to during any given day, at least nine would say “no” or even all 10. Phew! And I was a model for three years. I dealt with a lot of failure and rejection for three straight years.

With my modeling career, I learned to just shrug it off and keep on going or else fail for sure.

Five business failures

Truly, if it were easy, everyone would be an entrepreneur. I have yet to hear an entrepreneur say “every single idea I come up with seems to work.” Most likely, you hear something like “I failed at my first five businesses before this one took off.”

Think about that for a second… five businesses.

Sometimes the number is three, sometimes it’s a lot more, but the important point is that most entrepreneurs don’t hit a home-run with their first company. It’s really amazing how many people have the courage to fail five times and still start a sixth business. You have to be super confident and treat those previous five times as a learning experience.

It’s easy to let the failure consume you not because you’re pessimistic, but more so because it’s hard to see something that you poured your heart and soul into being ignored or rejected.

Failure isn’t easy and is extremely frustrating, but it’s a necessary part of success.

Michelle Leon is an Internet entrepreneur.

In my opinion, the most important thing is how you deal with failure. Once you accept that it’s inevitable, you are able to learn from your mistakes and keep moving.

Source: http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-10-13/blog/giving-em-the-business/entrepreneurship-five-or-more-failures-to-success

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