Failure Traits

A few years ago I read a book about Major League Baseball called “Money Ball”. It was about how the Oakland A’s discovered a new way of studying statistics in order to find players that others might have overlooked in order to compete with teams that had more money in bigger markets like Los Angeles, New York, etc. In other words, they learned to take a new and different look at the old game of baseball in order to better compete. For example, one of the main criterion baseball has always used is batting average to determine the hitting ability of a player. One of the criterions the A’s used is what they call OBP, on base percentage, including walks to determine a player’s value. In their perspective a player who walks a lot is a very valuable commodity.

I remember our high school varsity baseball coach always exhorting our pitchers that “walks will kill you” as a way of trying to get them to focus on throwing strikes because walks inevitably ended up turning into runs for the other team. However, I never heard him exhort our batters to “work the count” in order to try and get on base using walks to kill the other team. He was only looking at the situation from one perspective.

For quite a while, I have been trying to figure out where this applies to our business. How and where will looking at what we do from a different perspective be valuable to HBW and help our associates maximize their opportunity for success. I think that I have discovered a notion where we can relook at a particular area to help people in a dramatic way.

Something we seem to spend a lot of time with is talking about what successful people do and how we should emulate their behavior in order to be successful ourselves. While this is obviously important, a better, or at least, another approach is to study the reasons why people fail, which are often generally far more obvious, and by recognizing and eliminating these behaviors, we may give our associates a far better chance to succeed.

Our personal behaviors regarding failure, I think, may be the hardest thing for many of us to acknowledge because of our ability to rationalize. I do think; however, that all of us will recognize some aspects of our behavior or activities that have been or continue to lead us to places we don’t really want to be, places where we are failing or losing when we really want to be succeeding and winning. It is my hope that someone will have the courage to take a hard, close look at them self and be willing to relate to, identify and then take the necessary steps to change the patterns that have not brought the results that they desire.

I have come to realize that in many cases it is actually easier to see why most people fail or are failing than to understand why so relatively few people succeed. In other words, traits that cause failure are often easier to identify than success traits, although the failure traits are simply the other side of the same coin. We all are able to see what the other person is doing that makes no sense and yet often turn a blind eye to our own, similar behavior. An easy example is observing someone who smokes, abuses alcohol, over eats and is obese, never exercises and has a terrible negative attitude about everything. We may be doing some or all of these things our self but with us, personally, it is somehow “different”.

Another example is that we have all known someone or have been personally involved in a romantic relationship with someone who we finally realized, only after the fact, was entirely wrong for us. All our friends and family knew it but we were blind to all the clues that a disaster was coming until we were out of the relationship with some distance, in order to see what everyone else clearly saw. Tons of other examples such as an employee coming to work late every day and doing the least instead of the most is probably not going to keep their job very long. Or a husband who mistreats or abuses his wife is unlikely to experience a happy, fulfilling marriage. These and others are examples of failure behavior that is easy for almost anyone to identify in others. The trick in becoming successful is to be able to identify these poor behavior patterns in ourselves and reverse or eliminate them.

The great Basketball coach, John Wooden was given three rules by his father when he went off to college, don’t whine, don’t complain, and don’t make excuses. In other words, if when things don’t go your way and you are whining, complaining and making excuses, you are exhibiting behavior that leads to failure. I often quote the great golfer, Ben Hogan’s ten, two letter word mantra, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Personal responsibility is the opposite of whining, complaining and making excuses.

An aspect of failure that we all recognize in people is blaming others, our parents, our spouse, our boss, our employees, our community, city, state, country, politicians, the media, teachers, coaches, friends and even God. It is always someone else's fault for whatever is going on in most people’s lives. The proverbial “they” are holding them back. For the successful person, see Ben Hogan above.

One of the classic traits of a person in failure mode, the unsuccessful person, is their often absolute inability, refusal to deal with failure. This is so interesting because we all grew up with stories of Thomas Edison and his 10,000 failures to make a light bulb work before he finally succeeded. We learned that Henry Ford said that “The only time you can’t afford to fail is the last time you try.”

In this vein, many successful people from foreign countries comment about the American entrepreneurial trait of embracing failure on the road to success, but perhaps there are so few entrepreneurs, as a percentage, because so few people really understand this notion or develop, yes I said develop, the ability to deal with failure. Unsuccessful people take failure personally and their often fragile self esteems are shattered by the concept of failure and what other people will think of them if they fail.

This fear of failure compounds itself with many to the point where they don’t want to even try anymore. Unwilling to risk ridicule or perceived slights by peers, they choose a path of least resistance and live a shallow, mediocre life, ultimately controlled by other people and blaming others for their circumstance. People who fear failure often take things personally, particularly those things that are not even really personal. They think people, the world, “they” are out to get them and things are conspiring to keep them down.

Successful people realize that most people are not trying to do things to them. They understand that people usually are just doing things for themselves. They may get annoyed by someone’s foolish behavior and then usually quickly get over it.

Successful people simply realize that it, failure, is just part of the game and except it, learn from it and move on. Making another golf reference, bad shots really bother most mediocre players and we can carry a bad shot in our minds for several holes, compounding the mistake as a result. Then, you take a guy like Tiger Woods. I have heard him curse when he hits a bad shot and then it looks like he immediately forgets it as he considers his next shot. It almost seems as if he really likes his bad shots because he loves the creativity of figuring out how to overcome that shot, a truly great and exciting attitude which is why it is so fun to watch him play.

Another interesting trait exhibited by unsuccessful people is their decision making process. Unsuccessful people are usually very slow and ponderous when making a decision and very fast to change their minds. They don’t have the strength of their own convictions and so, with their toe barely stuck in the water, when things get dicey, a little challenging, or it’s just not what they totally expected, they cut and run. Again, the fear of failure is so deeply rooted that quitting and excuse making becomes an escape mechanism for avoiding failure, in their minds. This is ironic because this behavior guarantees ultimate failure.

On the other hand, successful people are fast to decide and slow to change their minds. Their motto is, “when you have a decision, make it and forget about it. The moment of absolute certainty never arrives.” They do their due diligence, make sure they are dealing with the right people, the best people for whatever they are doing and than off they go to make their dreams a reality. At that point, they fight like crazy to make their decision the right one, but if they fail, they do so knowing they gave it their best shot, get over it and quickly move on.

As part of decision making, it is ironic that unsuccessful people seldom consider the people they are involved with or recognize the importance of this aspect. Because they don’t understand why they fail, they can’t understand why this is important. Unsuccessful people generally tend to believe nonsense and so avoid careful due diligence because they want to believe that success is simply luck, being in the right place at the right time and not the reality of diligence, hard work, lots of regular, thoughtful good decisions, planning and preparation, which are some of the traits which truly leads to success. Unsuccessful people seem to buy into the nonsense, the hype, the baloney because they don’t seem to want to do the real work. Hype, nonsense and baloney are often far more appealing than reality, hard work, etc. This helps explains a Bernie Madoff who was showing returns clearly too good to be true, particularly as he was an unregistered advisor, which was very appealing for so many people. It didn’t matter how he was getting those bogus returns and many of his investors really didn’t want to know because the hype, nonsense and baloney was so intoxicating. Madoff is not the only one. In fact these scams are everywhere today, accelerated in a bad economy by people desperate for answers, answers that sound good with little or no basis in reality. An example of this is salespeople selling expensive, non-competitive products, which they paint as far better than they actually are, to get the unsuspecting, less educated client or customer to part with their hard earned money. The same is true for large sections of our population who believe that a politician, any politician is going to make government more efficient and improve our lives. That is simply not the nature of the beast. It is more likely that a good result in government is more accident than planning.

On the other hand, successful people generally want to deal in reality. They recognize that the best opportunity can be wrecked by the wrong people and the worst opportunity can be made by the right people. Who they are in business with is priority number 1, the extreme opposite of unsuccessful people who seldom if ever even considers this aspect as an issue. Successful people deal with “what is” and try to make the best of every situation, turning lemons into lemonade. They are optimistically realistic and see answers within a problem, opportunities within a challenge.

Unsuccessful people generally rail about everything that is wrong in their eyes and about how things ought to be so that than they can finally get their due and be successful. The unsuccessful person sees problems and challenges without seeing solutions and opportunity. They also tend to believe things that are most likely often not true to help them feel better about their existence. Things like, luck, right place at the right time, genetics, deciding that rich people are miserable, successful people are unhappy, and other nonsensical beliefs and statements are what unsuccessful people make to rationalize the frustrating failure that eats at their very being. They don’t want to consider the possibility that successful people, studied harder, sacrificed more, took more chances, dreamed harder, fought harder, worked harder and made better decisions and often have wonderfully fun, interesting, fulfilling lives because if they do, than they must acknowledge their failure which successful people don’t deal with. That is why they love the occasional anecdotal stories of miserable rich people. It makes their fears and failures seem little different from the lives of most successful people, lives that are startling, remarkably different in so many ways.

Successful people usually deal with the same problems, challenges, adversity and life issues that unsuccessful people deal with. They have generally developed better skills for handling these issues and don’t allow these issues to derail them or overwhelm them.

One last comment about success and failure is that either of those stations in life often have little to do with money. Consider this statement: success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get. Being successful is about an attitude, as is being unsuccessful.

Let’s look at some comparisons, the opposite side of the same coin to draw an analysis between unsuccessful people compared to successful people.

Unsuccessful people make excuses, whine, complain and blame other people for their problems and failures.

Successful people don’t whine or complain or blame others. They take personal responsibility for their situation, look for answers from within themselves, learn from their mistakes and move on as quickly as possible.

Unsuccessful people live in fear and rationalize as to why they are failing.

Successful people live in boldness and see opportunity while recognizing that failure is simply part of the equation that leads to success.

Unsuccessful people are slow to decide and quick to change their minds.

Successful people are quick to decide and slow to change their minds.

Unsuccessful people think that successful people are lucky, born with a silver spoon, at the right place at the right time and etc.

Successful people make their own luck by outworking, out planning, outthinking and out preparing their competition.

Unsuccessful people blame others or say, “It wasn’t my fault” when they make a mistake.

Successful people say, “I was wrong” apologize if necessary and take responsibility.

Unsuccessful people say “I’m not as bad as a lot of other people”.

Successful people say “I may be good but I am not nearly as good as I can be or plan to be”.

Unsuccessful people generally have unrealistic fantasies like winning the lottery, or their ship is coming in.

Successful people realize that winning the lottery is not going to happen because they seldom buy tickets. They also know that the only way their ship is going to come in is if they send several ships out in the first place.

Unsuccessful people, regardless of income level, spend more than they make, live above their means, and are most always frustrated.

Successful people, regardless of income level, know that the only way to have money is to save money and live below their means.

Unsuccessful people usually view the world as things first, people second and money third.

Successful people usually view the world as people first, money second and things third.

Unsuccessful people tend to believe that successful people have fewer problems and life is easy. Unsuccessful people think there problems are worse than anyone else’s problems and bigger than they are.

Successful people recognize that, in life everyone has problems and simply handle the problem by realizing that every problem has a solution. Successful people see themselves as bigger than the problem.

Unsuccessful people know all the reasons why something won’t work and are delighted to tell everyone just why it won’t work

Successful people look for any reason why something can work and go about trying to do just that, make it work.

Unsuccessful people love money and use people.

Successful people love people and use money.

Unsuccessful people act like they think know everything and yet have little thirst for knowledge or self improvement.

Successful people realize how little they actually know and have a thirst for knowledge and self improvement.

Unsuccessful people spend a great deal of time addressing short-term problems at the expense of the long-term, which is why they are constantly addressing short-term problems.

Successful people spend most of their time looking at the big picture and primarily keep their focus on their long-term goals.

Unsuccessful people are takers, always looking for what is in it for them.

Successful people are givers, looking for ways to be of more value to others.

Unsuccessful people generally seek the company of other unsuccessful people.

Successful people generally seek the company of other successful people.

Unsuccessful people often live in the past and focus on their mistakes and regrets.

Successful people live in the present, having learned from their mistakes. They learn from the past but don’t live in the past.

Unsuccessful people care more about how they look, how they are perceived than how good they really are. All show and no go, style over substance.

Successful people are about substance over style and focus on others as a means to success.

Unsuccessful people hate change, resist change and often refuse to accept change.

Successful people embrace change and recognize the inevitable, that change is the only constant. Successful people like to experiment and try new things and explore new ideas.

Unsuccessful people want it all now, which often leads to poor and short-term destructive decision making. They are unable to defer gratification.

Successful people realize that good things take time and that time is not a factor in the pursuit of great goals. They learn how to delay gratification

Unsuccessful people generally don’t like what they do for a living.

Successful people love what they do, are passionate about what they do.

Unsuccessful people often act impulsively, on instinct or impulse and don’t consider the consequences of their actions.

Successful people think about what they are doing, consider the consequences of a decision and how it will affect their long-term goals.

Unsuccessful people give up fast and easily when faced with the first signs of adversity.

Successful people fight for their dreams and goals with a tenacious persistency.

Unsuccessful people try and bring down others to their level.

Successful people try and bring others up to their level.

Unsuccessful people are often aimless and waste a lot of time.

Successful people are focused on always trying to do the most productive thing at all times, while recognizing that relaxing and vacationing can be very productive after working hard for a long time.

Unsuccessful people are always looking for short cuts and are often trying to find the easy way out.

Successful people know there are generally no short cuts and the hardest way is usually the way that leads to success.

It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
Robert Green Ingersoll
Great minds have purpose, others have wishes.
Washington Irving
Thomas Edison (1846 - 1931):
I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Howard Ruff:
Plan ahead, it wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.
Teddy Roosevelt:
No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
Martin Luther King, Jr.:
If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, "Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well."
Norman Vincent Peale:
Believe that you are defeated, believe it long enough, and it is likely to become a fact.
We tend to get what we expect.
Thomas Jefferson:
Whenever you do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
Confucius:
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.
Franklin D. Roosevelt:
When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
Margaret Thatcher:
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
John Wooden:
Failure to prepare is preparing to fail
Henry Ford:
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
Booker T. Washington:
I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed.
You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
George S. Patton, Jr.:
Always do more than is required of you
An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A battle is raging inside me ... it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The old man fixed the children with a firm stare. "This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee replied: "The one you feed."