I want to be known as a failure.
I want to be known as a failure.
We shouldn’t want people to know us for everything we do great. Because when that’s all that people know they don’t get a complete picture of who we are, or who they can be.
When people see our success, and nothing else, they don’t see all of the sacrifice that led to that success. They don’t see the hours an athlete practices until his fingers bleed, the sleepless nights of the student who studies to ace their test, the years of struggle and prayer that gives a parent good children. If people only see our success, they don’t see the sacrifice it took us to get there.
So when somebody congratulates us on our grades, or trophies or well behaved children the first thing on our lips should be our failures.
Because unless people see the failures behind your success they’ll never see the success at the end of their failures.
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 and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan
Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, said she grew up with her dad asking her at dinner, “What did you fail at this week?” He told her she wasn’t growing and trying if she wasn’t failing at times.