Recovering From Failure and Coming Out Stronger

Image Credit | Andrea Piacquadio | Pexels

On the 17th, of September in 1985, Steve Jobs submitted his letter of resignation to the board of directors at Apple, ending his employment. He had founded the company less than a decade prior in 1976. In that short time frame, Apple went from a boutique manufacturer of hobby computers into a major player in the computer industry. The Apple 1 gave way to the Apple II, which was a huge success. Later came the LISA and then the Macintosh. 

Today the Mac is the computer of choice for huge swaths of the population. They're on the desks of everyone from students to CEOs of fortune 40 companies. The Mac generates billions of dollars of revenue annually for Apple. However, the Macintosh wasn't an instant success. It was an impressive technical feat, but it was expensive and it was competing against IBM. Jobs was convinced that the Macintosh was better and would defeat the IBM PC. Their confidence was so high that Apple took out a full-page ad in the New York times welcoming IBM to the PC market. Of course, we know now that, IBM greatly outperformed the Mac and Apple was in a tough financial spot due to the Macintosh.

The failure of the Macintosh to take first place in the PC market gave the CEO, that Jobs had convinced to join Apple, the power to reorganize the company and effectively strip Jobs of his power. Realizing that he couldn't win this battle, Jobs resigned. He left Apple and took 5 senior employees with him to form NeXT computer. He would later purchase PIXAR from the special effects firm Industrial Light and Magic. 

NeXT computer pushed the boundaries of what was possible and produced truly impressive products. They were at the very high end of the market but enabled the end-user and the organizations they worked with to become far more productive. then they might otherwise have been. While NeXT was pushing the boundaries of what was possible, Apple was struggling to remain viable. The Mac eventually replaced the Apple II as the flagship product for Apple, but Mac OS development struggled. It was in such a bad state that Apple realized they needed to purchase a new OS to build the next version of Mac OS on top of it. 

In 1997 Apple purchased NeXT for 429 Million dollars. This brought Steve Jobs back to Apple as a strategic advisor. Within a year, the board of directors lets the existing CEO go and replaced them with Jobs. Back in charge at Apple, Jobs brought Apple back from the brink of bankruptcy. He simplified the product line and then introduced new products like the iMac, the iPod the iPhone, and the iPad. He took a company that he had been pushed out of, built a new company, came back, and saved the original company from failure.

It would have been easy for Steve to take his millions of dollars and feel pity for himself and walk away from the business altogether. He could have easily looked at that as a failure, not of a particular product but himself as an individual. He didn't though. He understood that the Mac was a good product but not quite right for the market at the time. He knew that there were still great products to be developed and advances in technology. Rather than view himself as a failure, he viewed the opportunity to move on and do more great things.

You too shouldn't view a failure or a setback as a life-defining event. Instead, you should view it as a singular event in the history of your life and use it as a fork in the road to learn and try new things. That can seem easier in hindsight or when you're not in the middle of the storm of emotions that comes from not meeting your own goals, but it is very possible. There are many examples across history of people that persevere through failure to achieve great things.

What is Failure?

Failure is simply the fact that the outcomes failed to meet the goals. It doesn't mean that the organization or the person that did not achieve the goal is a bad person, or they are a failure. It means simply that there was a desired outcome and something other than that outcome occurred. 

It's important to understand that failure to one person may seem like success to another. Your perspective on an outcome can influence how you see the results. If you set a goal for sales that is higher than you've ever achieved but fall short of that goal you might see that as a failure. You might also have had a banner sales period and achieved truly impressive results. Someone that is struggling in sales might see that as a wild success. Remember to keep perspective during failure. 

How Do You Recover From Failure?

First Study What Happened

Start by asking yourself what the goal was and what the result was. How do the two compare and how close or far away from achieving that goal were you? What caused the outcome you ended up with? Was this something that was within your control or something outside of your control? Could you have predicted this would have happened and prepared for it? Understand what role you had in the outcome. What could you have done differently, if anything, to overcome the obstacles that resulted in falling short of your goals?

By studying and understanding why you got the results that you did, it is easier to plan for the future. You might need to adjust your goals or timelines. You may need to bring in new resources. You may need to adjust your strategy. The important thing is that you take a look at your results from an objective perspective so you can more effectively plan your next steps. 

Realize That A Single Incident Does Not Define You

A single failure does not define you as an individual and it does not define your company. If you drop your morning coffee on the floor, you don't fall to your knees and declare that you are a failure in life. You swear and begin to clean up the mess. Then, probably, you make another cup of coffee and go about your day. This is true for the small things and the big things. Apple bet millions on the Macintosh and the first version wasn't a wild success. Microsoft spent millions of dollars on the first Surface computer and it wasn't successful. Neither company quit and neither company failed because of a single mistake. Instead, they looked at what happened and planned their next steps. 

Set New Goals

You are past the failure and you understand what went wrong. You've put the emotions of failure behind you and understand that that was an event, not the definition of who you are. Now it's time to look to the future. What goals will you set now, based on what you learned? Adjust your strategy to move forward with the information that you now possess. Failure hurts, but the information you learn from it is tremendously valuable. Use that gift to come out stronger and set new tough goals with a plan that's built on top of the knowledge of how you could have been successful the first time.

Be Your True Self

Don't let fear change who you are. When you were a child and did something that hurt, you cried, but your brain also learned a lesson about what not to do. You don't touch the stove or you get burned for example. What you didn't do was completely alter your personality based on that experience. As we become adults we begin to have greater fear for how others might perceive us. Failure can linger in our minds and cause us to act differently than we think we should. 

Rather than changing who you are or putting up a facade to protect yourself from looking foolish, be honest about who you truly are. The reality is that people can typically see right through your facade and realize that you're not being honest with them. When they see this they identify you as disingenuous and someone that they should believe in or follow. Instead, accept when you've had a failure but understand it didn't change who you are. Be your own person and be your true self. People want to follow someone that appears confident and knows who they are. You can only be that person when you are your true self.

Success in life is achievable for all of us. The perspective we carry and our ability to brush off the setbacks can help us achieve more than we ever thought possible. Have you ever struggled with failure? I want to learn more. Tell me below or contact me!