Take Jack for example. He was a young man in Ohio who wanted to play music professionally. All through high school, he played the guitar and wrote songs. His teachers, friends and family loved his music and told him he was very talented. Finally, he entered a talent contest and came in third. It depressed him so much that he decided to quit music and go to college to obtain a business degree.

This was what his father wanted all along, and the young man just surrendered his dream. He gave up. He let this tiny failure derail him. Instead of recognizing that it was a major accomplishment to win third place, and that if he applied himself and continued to hone his craft he could actually win the contest the next year, he just gave up. That young man will more than likely go to his grave with many, many regrets.

Jack was not in a “variable” state. He was rigid and negative. It’s essential for the health of complex systems, and Jack, like you, are a complex physiological system. If you’re “variable,” then you’re going to see your failure as an opportunity — as a gift to unwrap and use for success.

I remember once talking to a taxi driver in Los Angeles. He explained that when the city experienced earthquakes, the super highways would actually bend and curve with the wind and rolling grounds. I thought this was strange and tried to imagine how solid objects could be fluid.

But when you think about it, everything is made up of atoms and atoms are movable. After some research, I discovered that when architects design bridges, buildings and highways in California and other parts of the world, they create designs with the right amount of variability so the buildings and roads will bend with the earthquakes or with high winds.

Too much variability or flexibility and the roads and buildings will be unstable and crumble. Too little variability and the buildings and roads will be too rigid and brittle and the first serious earthquake will destroy it.

The same is true in sports or business, and really in all of life. If a business leader, teacher or coach is stubborn and refuses to make changes despite evidence that what they’re doing is not successful, then their efforts will eventually end in failure. If an athletic coach never changes the way he designs plays, then the opponents will quickly learn the team’s game and conquer them.

The coach, the leader and you must know how to attain a state of variability. If Jack had been able to attain this variability, he would have more than likely gone on to win music contests and eventually obtain a recording contract. We’ll never know.

Keep this in mind: Variability is not only important in sports and business, but in all areas of life. When you fail in life at whatever it is you’re trying to do, you have to demonstrate flexibility and stick to it to help you achieve the success you desire.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post The Power of Variability appeared first on Matt Mayberry.

Here’s what one highly successful woman had to say about the “F-word:”

“Eventually, we all must come to a decision, for ourselves, about what represents failure. However, the world is very keen to put failure on a schedule, and give you a set of decisive factors, if you allow it. A meager seven years following my graduation, failure had hit me on a grand scale. A fleeting marriage was dissolved, I had no job, [I was] a single parent and as destitute as anyone could possibly be without living on the streets. My parents’ fears for me, and those I had for myself, had finally transpired, and according to the book of failure, I was the biggest.”

The above paragraph is a summation of a speech given by J.K. Rowling at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

The whole purpose of using J.K. Rowling as an example about the importance of failure is to emphasize the point that failure is not unusual. In fact, it is very ordinary and has been misunderstood throughout time.

First, understand that success means something different to different people. However, there is something everyone has in common who has succeeded at what they set out to do: They have failed at one time or another. There is no way to live life without failing from time to time. The only way you won’t fail is if you live so guardedly that you are barely living at all, wherein, you fail by default.

Failure drives us to change. Without it, where would we be today? Thomas Edison produced tons of light bulbs that did not work. If he had not tried again and again, we’d still be using oil lamps and candles for lights.

Winston Churchill once stated, “Success is based on going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

Of course, some individuals are sardonic. These types of people never pick themselves up from failure because they did not grow. Failure courses through everyone’s lives. The SBA states that more than half of small businesses fail during their first five years. However, failed entrepreneurial pursuits are as vital as successful ones.

One specific industry that thrives on failure is technology. There’s hardly anyone over the age of 25 who is not familiar with the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple. He was the perfect example of someone who found the “gift” in failure. In his first attempt at a mobile gadget, it failed. It failed badly and he was thrown out of the company. Nonetheless, he has one of the greatest comeback stories of all time.

In your world, what represents failure? Ask yourself that question and really take some time to answer truthfully. Just as Rowling said, we all must come to the decision about what failure and adversity represents in our lives. Our answers to that very important question greatly determines our levels of achievement and what’s in store for us in the future.

The greats, the champions, the best to ever do it view failure and adversity as their friend and something to help them grow and ignite their creativity and desire to be the absolute best.

Originally Posted on Entrepreneur.com

The post Failure Is a Gift appeared first on Matt Mayberry.