Fail to prevail

Matt Leech 29th January 2013

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Take a look around and look at the people that make it and you will learn that they were all failures at some point. 

Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team (and cried for days), Walt Disney was told he lacked creativity, Henry Ford went bankrupt 5 times before he was successful, the list goes on and on.

What can we learn from this?

Personally, I think it means we need to be fearless, try new things, implement ideas and take risks because I believe you need to fail to prevail.

I heard that when applying for a job in Silicon Valley, the main question and focus was on how many failures you have had and if they were big enough to justify working in their business. I think they might be onto something...



Winning isn't fun if you can't share it

​Matt Leech 19th January 2013

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I've learnt a lot about winning recently that I wanted to share with you.

I used to think winning was important but it can be an isolating experience, I have come to realised that it's not important at all. The only time winning can be great is if you can share it.



So I wanted to share a story with you that a friend of mine told me, he said “success is nothing if you can’t share it.” I must admit when I heard this, I knew it was instantly something important but not something I had considered before. I was interested so I asked, “What do you mean?”

He began to tell me a story about how he and nine other friends share in a race horse for fun & love of horse racing. They make the effort of getting together at race days and cheering on their horse. He told me that their horse was to race at one of the big meets and himself and nine other mates would all catch a plane to the event, stay in a hotel and spend a few days together. They were having a fantastic time at the airport, plane trip, hotel and eventually getting to the big day.

When they arrived on the big day, there was a well known horse owner right beside him and his group, so they all went and introduced themselves and discussed their horses and wished each other luck for the race.

The race started and eventually got closer to the finish and they all started to cheer and enjoy themselves together as a group as their horse started to look like it could come third. They noticed that the well known horse owner was not cheering his horse on even though his horse was leading the pack and looked to be the certain winner.

The nine of them ended up getting third place which was of major excitement, and the well known horse owner got first place. My friend went on to explain “even though we came third, we were the winners on the day as we experienced it together and celebrated over the following days, we will never forget such a great experience”. I couldn't help but ask about the well known owner who won first, he replied, “As soon as the race had finished he congratulated us on third place and went on to say he was heading home. He was actually there with no one to celebrate his win with."

Obviously, winning can be great but personally, I think winning is much better if you can share it...