Success is 99% Failure

by Steve ----Bookmark on del.icio.us----

Sochiro Honda – founder of Honda Motor Company said – Success is 99% Failure.

What did he mean?

When I first read this quote I thought – what a pile of BS double talk. But as I grew, I understood consciously and intuitively what Mr. Honda meant.

To understand Mr. Honda, I turned my attention to my own life. I’ve spent my entire life failing at important stuff…

  • When I first walked, I fell
  • When I spoke I stuttered
  • When I wrote a d it looked like b
  • When I wrote a b it looked like a d
  • When I sprinted I puked
  • When I rode a bike I crashed
  • When I played football I fumbled
  • When I was a student I failed more classes than I passed
  • My first three girlfirends either dumped me or were nuts
  • When I ran for political office I lost – Thank God!
  • When I started a dot com in 1997, I worked 90 hours a week for two years and never made a dollar
  • When I drove a truck, I dumped 2,000 gallons of paint (by accident) in a parking lot and created an environmental hazard (we cleaned it up)
  • When I first drove, I totaled 4 cars
  • When I first used Windows 95, I trashed the entire file system
  • When I first administered data I deleted an entire customer database without a backup – and I lived to talk about it

That’s just a few of my failures. Believe me, I have a lot more. My failures used to haunt me. They used to inhibit me from trying again.

But today I believe…

The day you quit trying and concede to your demons is the day your soul dies.

Read the 10 part series on the 10 things I wish I had never believed:

#1 Why People Believe Money is the Root of All Evil
#2 Why Getting a Good Job isn’t the Best Way to Earn Money
#3 The Secret Great Leaders Know About Emotions
#4 Success is 99% Failure
#5 10 Tips to Secure a Management Position without a College Degree
#6 Always Question Your Doctor - Three Stories Why
#7 How the Public School System Crushes Souls
#9 Give Me 3 Minutes and I’ll Make you a Better Decision Maker

This post was entered in the Personal Development Carnival at the Balanced Life Center. Thanks Nneka.



8 Responses to “Success is 99% Failure”

  1. Silicon Valley Blogger Says:

    Wow, powerful post. Just this post alone has given me hope about a few things I’ve struggled with this week. Thank you for this post — along with some words of encouragement from fellow bloggers, this has made me feel like what I’m doing is worth the effort and struggle.

  2. Personal Development Carnival - 12/10/06 Edition - Balanced Life Center Says:

    […] Steve Olson presents Success is 99% Failure posted at Steve Olson. […]

  3. Why Can’t You All Just OBEY Me? / links for 2006-12-06 Says:

    […] Success is 99% Failure Steve Olson wrote a great post, based on the quote “Success is 99% Failure”, by Sochiro Honda, founder of the Honda Motor Company. (tags: cars, Honda, quote, success, failure, blogging) […]

  4. Uspjeh je 99% greška - : Mračni blog Says:

    […] p.s. ovo nije moj tekst, ali bih lagano mogao napisati isti takav, ovaj sam ugrubo i nabrzaka preveo sa Steve Olson bloga, bacite tamo pogled, to je jedan sjajni blog i ima puno lipih stvari za pročitati Misao dana: The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. hr.digg|prijaviThese icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]

  5. Josh Says:

    This is a great post.

    ‘The day you quit trying and concede to your demons is the day your soul dies’

    Wow, I got the opportunity to explain that to a banker of mine one day when we had a heated meeting about my lack of cashflow and ability to pay his loan payments.

    He told me I should settle, and not grab for the brass ring, and I politely thanked him for his comments, and explained that the day I give up and settle is the day that my soul dies.

  6. richdadsecrets4me.com » Blog Archive » Success is 99% Failure Says:

    […] For more details. […]

  7. Lost in Translation » Blog Archive » “The best way to win is to lose a lot.” Says:

    […] The exchange got me thinking about games in general. As Honda Sochiro said, “Success is 99% failure”, which holds true in games too. The more you fail at something, the more likely you are to succeed at it, whether it’s building a business or stomping Goombas - assuming that you’re closely observing what’s going on when you fail. Unfortunately, failure itself is frustrating and disheartening. It takes a certain amount of determination just to get up again and say “Well, back to the drawing board“. […]

  8. sharon Says:

    I can’t agree with you any more. Life is not always filled with comfort, when we are faced with failures, we should never lose self-confidence, just keep going on~~~~

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