How ToTurn Defeat Into Victory
In his book The Magic of Thinking Big, David J Schwartz outlines 5 guidelines to help you turn defeat into victory. I just wanted to add my tuppence to his points here and suggest that these are actually the unconscious rules that most professional entrepreneurs follow whether they have read the book or not.
5 Ways That Professionals Turn Defeat Into Victory
1. Study Setbacks to pave the way for success.
Entrepreneurs do this all the time. It’s the old adage – Fall down 7 times but get up 8 times. As long as you learn something from your failures they are actually valuable. If you don’t then you are actually following the definition of insanity that Einstein described as “ doing the same thing but expecting different results.2. Have the Courage to be your own constructive critic.
Again this goes to identifying and recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses. There is little point in pursuing an area of business you are not good at – outsource it and concentrate on what you ARE good at.
3. Stop blaming luck.
Outside of pure gambling, entrepreneurs would mainly agree that there is no such thing as luck. They make their own, largely by following parts one and two above.
4. Blend Persistence with experimentation.
This could almost have been written about marketing. The experimentation part is like testing different images and copy for adverts and the persistence part is just the act of continuing with the testing and fine-tuning. You keep the goal in mind but keep trying different approaches to get there.
5. See the good side
There is a good side, a silver lining in every situation that can be used to turn defeat into victory– provided you follow point one and take a lesson away from a bad outcome. Professionals and business entrepreneurs train themselves to look for the good side and not to dwell on the bad.
Athletes Regularly Turn Defeat Into Success
There are tons of examples of people turning failure to success by following principles like these. Not just in business but in sport, relationships and many other areas of life. As the author says – It’s about the attitude we take to setbacks, disappointments – discouraging situations in general.
Time and time again entrepreneurs, sportsmen, artists and scientists prove this with surprise success stories that come from unlikely looking ventures. It actually seems to me sometimes that the things that would defeat other people just motivate others even more.
It’s almost like they need them and that goes to the whole subject of drive – nothing will stop a focussed, determined individual from getting to their goal no matter how may hurdles, wrong turns or rethinks are required.
