failure

There are 3 posts tagged failure (this is page 1 of 1).

The 7UP Story

My father used to tell us this story about a guy who loved soda, so he went into the soda business, with a product called 3UP. It failed. So he started again with a soda called 4UP. It failed, too. So he decided to name his product 5UP and worked just as hard to make it work, but sure enough, it failed again. He realized that he still loved soda, so he tried again with a product named 6UP. It failed, and he gave up completely.

Then, a few years later, someone else came up with a soda product and named it 7UP, which became a huge success. When I was young, I couldn’t understand why my father kept telling us this story. He told it many times. Later, I realized he was telling us to never give up.

Excerpt from Why We Want You to Be Rich by Donald Trump.

Failure Humbles

Every creative person has to learn to deal with failure, because failure, like death and taxes, is inescapable. If Leonardo and Beethoven and Goethe failed on occasion, what makes you think you’ll be the exception?

I don’t mean to romanticize failure, to parrot the cliche, “If you’re not failing, you’re not taking enough risks,” especially if that view “liberates” you to fail too often. Believe me, success is preferable to failure. But there is a therapeutic power to failure. It cleanses. It helps you put aside who you aren’t and reminds you who you are. Failure humbles.

Excerpt from The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.