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.