Hey guys, Trevor Mauch here…
I was talking with other local entrepreneurs recently at our Young Entrepreneur Society event (a local entrepreneur networking group I started) and the conversation veered in the direction that conversations about entrepreneurship, success, abundance, wealth, etc. tend to go...
One of the members asked the group what we thought is the main difference between people who succeed and kick butt doing something… and the hordes of people who “try” the same thing and fail miserably. Answers were thrown around, all of them 100% valid and true (like focus, resources, etc.)… but one entrepreneur hit the nail on the head (more on that in a bit).
Before I tell you the #1 difference between people who succeed and those who fail at something… I want to dive into a couple stories.
Story #1: How 2 Failed Companies Led to One of the Most Recognizable Brands in History
Henry Ford, you’ve probably heard of him. Right? What most people don’t know is his history, and how he built what eventually became the Ford Motor Company.
Ford was born in 1863 and was an engineer by trade. At 30 he was just a “run of the mill” Chief Engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company. In his spare time he tinkered with things and built a gasoline-powered engine.
But, what happens next isn’t what you think...
At 36, Ford resigned from the Edison Illuminating Company and started his first auto company… Detroit Automobile Company. That company dissolved (i.e. failed) less than 2 years later because they weren’t able to make a quality car at a price that they could make a profit on.
Ford wasn’t alone. In a quick search I did online, I found a list with more than 131 failed American auto companies… and that’s just the companies that start with the letter ‘A.’ The full list of bankrupt, out-of-business American automakers is more than 1,000 strong… and most of them between 1890 – 1920.
Next for Henry Ford, he didn’t say… “Well shoot, I gave that a try… I’ll just go back to my old engineering job.” Instead, just 10 months later he started another company called the Henry Ford Company, which was backed and run by the team of shareholders who helped him with his first failed company.
Within months the management team made a move Ford didn’t like, and Ford left that company that was named after him (that company later changed to the Cadillac Motor Company)… to start a 3rd company with a partner called Ford & Malcomson, Ltd., which later became the Ford Motor Company in 1903… when Ford was 40 years old… almost 10 years after he ventured out to start his own automobile company.
We all know what happened next as Ford invented the assembly-line system that all automakers use today, and Ford became one of the most well-known brands in the world.
But, none of this would have happened if Ford hadn’t done one thing. I’ll tell you what that one thing is in a bit…
Story #2: The Oldest Rookie
In 1983 a young left-handed pitcher (I love baseball, so I had to throw in a baseball story!) named Jim Morris was selected 4th overall in the amateur baseball draft by the Milwaukee Brewers. Over a period of 4 years Jim suffered arm injury after arm injury… and never made it even close to his childhood dream of pitching in the big leagues.
By 1989, after being released from 2 different teams, he retired and became a teacher and baseball coach at a small high school in Texas.
Now, this is where the story gets cool…
While coaching his high school baseball team in 1999 (10 years after he was flushed out of the minor leagues) Jim made his team a promise: “Win the district championship and I’ll try out for Major League Baseball again.” Jim never thought his team would win… in fact, that high school had never won a District Championship in its history.
Well, his team did the impossible and won the title that year… and Jim was forced to hold up his end of the bargain. An open tryout for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays was being held where anyone could show up and try out for a shot at getting picked up…
As he walked on the field at 35 years old (ancient for baseball, especially for a rookie), he just did what he was best at… he threw the ball. But what no one was expecting was that he threw 12 consecutive pitches that were clocked at 98 miles per hour (for all of you non-baseball nuts, that’s FAST… like in the top 2% of all major league pitchers… and he was 35).
Jim was signed to a professional contract, and in September of that year he worked his way up to the Major Leagues… striking out the first batter he faced in the “bigs” on 4 straight pitches.
Arm troubles cropped back up for Jim, which forced him into retirement again in 2000, but that was 10 years after his initial failure… after everyone told him his career was over, and he’d never live his dream of pitching in the big leagues.
Jim Morris reached that goal. (You might recognize this story, Disney made it a movie in 2002.)
The #1 Thing Separating Successful People from the Average Mediocre Who Tries but Fails
The major thing that I can personally attest to as the main difference between people succeeding or failing at anything in life is…
…persistence and the ability to stick with something until you succeed.
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
~ Winston S. Churchill
Everyone fails. But guys like Henry Ford and Jim Morris – they didn’t quit at that first or second failure and let it stop them from claiming the life they wanted to live.
For me, it took me 18 months of struggling, living off of my credit cards to really have things click for me business wise so I could live (and thrive) from 100% of the money my businesses generated (which now generates the high 6 figures to low 7 figures each year).
Now, I know people personally, who are good friends, who say they want to quit their jobs… I personally mentored them step-by-step – but the minute they did’t get immediate results they quit, even when I could 100% guarantee their success if they stuck with it long enough.
So, where are you right now?
Are you on the verge of quitting on your dreams because you think it’s “never gonna happen” or didn’t happen fast enough? Are people telling you that you need to focus on your day job and just work for 30 years and get a good retirement?
I say screw that.
Pick a path… and stick with it until you make it happen. And always be 100% mentally positive that you’ll get there.
Success isn’t a matter of if you get there… but WHEN.
Talk to Me
How did you persevere through hard times? Talk to me in the comments section below.
Decide what your goals are.
Put together an action plan to reach (and exceed) those goals.
Never give up. Keep trying. Fail forward.