Never be afraid to dream too big, and never ever let someone dictate how you should dream or succeed!
Happy New Year!
FAIL.
TRY AGAIN.
SUCCEED.
#HTSAAIL
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For November’s HTSAAIL of the Month we wanted to do something different. Instead of writing a mini biography we wanted to share one prolific entrepreneur’s view on failure.
If you have looked up entrepreneurship on Instagram, YouTube or any other social media outlet, one of the first people to pop up is Gary Vaynerchuk.
If you don’t know who Gary is, he is the founder of VaynerX which holds interests in media properties, technology companies, and is also a social media agency.
He is also known as a wine critic who grew his family’s wine store into a multi million dollar business through YouTube wine reviews just when YouTube was starting out.
As an entrepreneur, he has experienced many failures throughout his life and we wanted to share his perspective on failure and how to overcome it. A quick 5 min read that can add some value to your day.
Just as a precursor: There is some strong language in the article.
How To Overcome Failure - Gary Vaynerchuk
Some great pointers to take from this article.
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Flying with Failure
The Wright Brothers, the name that is synonymous with aviation but did you know how many failures the 2 brothers had to face in order to achieve their first successful flight??
The brothers were self-educated, never went to college, and had to teach themselves engineering and physics. In the late 1890s, The Wright Brothers decided to take on innovation in the flight industry after selling their own bike shop business that sold their own designed bicycle.
After researching other flying crafts, they took on the challenge of creating a flying machine that had sustainable controls. (Just like a bicycle.)
The brother’s had built a successful glider but their biggest problem was creating power to take off, control, and land. With a glider built but with no power they were ready to test their first unattended flight….
…which was short lived. On their first flight, the unattended craft came crashing down to the ground after an unexpected gust of wind.
With their first big failure and crash, the brother’s went back to the drawing boards.
With improvements to the wingspan, it was on to their second flight. This flight was a bigger success than the first but it was still very difficult to control and attaining lift was an issue as well.
With a few redesigns, the brothers were able to create a successful glider that was easy to control and sustain lift. The next step was to create a powered glider that they were able to pilot.
This was not an easy task. An engine that was light enough and powerful enough to strap onto a plane did not exist. Their mechanic, Charlie Taylor, put himself to the task to design and create such an engine. In 1903, this engine was created and ready to be tested. But with technical problems, and weather that did not cooperate, the brother’s had to patiently wait to test it out.
After 3 months, the time came to fly the craft. Their powered flying craft took flight for 3.5 seconds and then stalled and crashed into the sand. A major component to the craft was broken and it took another 3 days to fix it. On the second attempt, the flight lasted 12 seconds and the Wright Brothers legacy was coming to life.
The Wright Brother’s were persistent throughout their entire journey.
They entered the aviation field with 0 knowledge and experience and taught themselves everything they could about it.
They did not give up after their first glider crashed nor did they throw in the towel after their powered engine craft crashed after 3.5 seconds. The Wright Brothers remained persistent until they achieved a powered flying craft that was easy to control, lift off, fly, and land.
Now today we have planes that break the sound barrier and rockets that have flown to the moon. (Even a piece of the Wright Brothers’ flying airplane is on the moon today.)
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As Popeye’s and Chik-Fil-A are feuding this month on who has the better fried chicken sandwich, we want to focus on another famous franchise that has stayed out of this fight.
We all know that Colonel Sanders started KFC at the age of 65 but did you know that for the first 40 years of his life he held numerous occupations that ranged from a streetcar conductor to an insurance salesman?
In those span of years, Harland (Colonel Sander’s first name) was running a service station in Nicholasville, Kentucky but unfortunately had to close it down due to the Great Depression.
In that same year of 1930, the Shell Oil company asked Harland to run a service station rent free as long as he provided them with a percentage of profits.
As he was running this service station, Harland began serving family style meals in his living quarters with his own fried chicken recipe. Word began spreading about his unique seasoning and his service station become a must stop for travelers going to Cumberland Falls or the Great Smokies. In 1935, the governor of Kentucky commissioned Harland Sanders as colonel and the name Colonel Sanders stuck.
In 1939, his original service station and restaurant (that he added on as popularity grew) burned to the ground as he was opening up a 2nd motel and restaurant location in North Carolina.
He rebuilt the Kentucky location as a motel with a 140 seat restaurant. By December 1941, the Colonel was forced to shut down his North Carolina motel due to rationing of supplies during WWII.
He sold his other motel and restaurant at cost with just enough to cover his debts. At the age of 65 Colonel Sanders was back to broke. The only thing that Colonel Sanders had was his famous fried chicken recipe.
At the age of 65, the Colonel hit the road and went to pitch his recipe to restaurants to license across the United States. How long did it take for the Colonel to close his first deal? 1? 10?
Let’s try 1,009 times before Colonel Sanders was able to successful license his recipe. His deal was to receive a $0.05 royalty for each piece of chicken sold.
By the time Colonel Sanders was 73 he was able to sell his share of KFC for $2 million.
Throughout the Colonel’s life, he experienced many successes and even more failures. At the age of 65, when most retire, Colonel Sanders was going through his biggest failure. Instead of giving up Sander went on to be rejected 1,000 more times before he was able to successfully license his recipe.
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A time of the year where many people take time off from work for vacations and trips with family and friends.
A little R&R is good for the brain and body.
With this free time, it is a good moment to reflect on past goals and achievements that have been accomplished or are in the process of getting completed.
Even if your goals for this year were not achieved up to this month you still have 4 MORE months to do so!
This month we'd like to share an awesome 90 second video from Patrick-Bet-David about focusing on the process of the journey and to show up EVERYDAY.
An entrepreneur from the age of 16, Sir Richard Branson has endured many failures on his way to becoming a business magnate, author, and philanthropist.
We wanted to cover a few of his many failures that he ran into along his journey to success.
Student
At the age of 16 Richard Branson dropped out of school to start his very first company. He started a magazine called Student geared toward his generation. He was able to generate some cash flow through advertisements (such as Coca Cola and Pepsi) but there was not enough to keep the business afloat.
During his time running Student, he had the idea to sell discounted records through his magazine via mail order. This idea quickly led to generating more cash than the magazine itself and Branson went on to open a record store in London. The magazine shut it doors but the record store was about to open new doors of opportunity to Richard.
Virgin Cola
In 1994, Branson set out to compete against Coca-Cola at their own game: soda.
A soda maker approached Branson to do a blind tasting between his own homemade cola vs. Pepsi and Coke. Branson preferred the homemade cola and decide to venture into the beverage industry. Testing began in the UK and it was becoming a big hit amongst the British customers. Cans were flying off shelves, but not by customers! Coca-Cola was the one buying his product. They were ruthless and wanted to control the entire market share without any disturbances. Once retailers took wind of this, they began cancelling their orders for Virgin Cola and Branson decided that it was time to shut the doors for Virgin Cola.
Virgin Digital
In 2001, Apple launched iTunes during the Dot-Com era. Digital music on the internet was still a brand new market. The iPod launched in 2001 and the way we enjoyed our music was never the same again. In 2005, Richard Branson launched Virgin Digital to compete against Apple . Virgin Digital had an extensive online library just like Apple, and even had a subscription service just like Spotify and Apple Music of today but what Virgin did not have was the iPod. Apple had found a goldmine and the right way to streamline the entire music listening process for the consumer. By 2007, Apple became too big of a competitor and Virgin Digital had to shutdown.
These are just 3 ventures that did not work out for Richard Branson. If you do some additional searching you will find that there are many failures that Branson encountered in the past from his early beginnings to ones in the past decade. But, as the motto for HTSAAIL is FAIL. TRY AGAIN., Richard Branson does just that. He is not afraid to fail but learns from his mistakes and applies the new lessons learned to a newer venture the he started.
A few quotes from Richard Branson…
“Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.”
“My attitude has always been, if you fall flat on your face, at least you're moving forward. All you have to do is get back up and try again.”
“If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.”
FAIL.
TRY AGAIN.
SUCCEED.
#HTSAAIL
Sources:
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Our HTSAAIL of the Month for May 2019 is George Lucas. George Lucas is famous for creating one of the most iconic movie series in history; Star Wars.
As of today, there are 9 Star Wars movies but we are going to focus on the original Star Wars movie and how it almost didn’t happen.
Back in 1973, George Lucas was fresh off of directing the movie “American Graffiti” which was a big hit and put him in the spotlight as an up and coming young director.
As a child, George Lucas was infatuated with sci-fi shows like Flash Gordon and always dreamed of creating his own on a much bigger scale. After his success of American Graffiti, Lucas began developing a script for his “space movie” which invited many obstacles and difficulties into his life.
The Rough Draft was one of the toughest things to do as Lucas stated. At many times it would leave him feeling ill with all the stress that it created. The 129 page rough draft was lacking a specific point of view and was all over the place story wise.
With a story somewhat put together, the next step of getting a movie created was getting a studio to back you. Even with all his previous successes, selling the idea of a sci-fi movie was more difficult than expected.
Many studios laughed at the idea of a “Space Opera” movie and that it would be the absolute laughing stock of Hollywood. Others believed that sci-fi was a dead genre and just for children. After meetings with numerous studios, 20th Century Fox was the only one that agreed. The green light wasn’t because they loved the idea, but because they loved George Lucas. His confidence and creativity which led to his previous achievements as a director gave them the confidence that he would be able to make this a success.
Star Wars began filming in the Tunisian desert, which led to its own set of problems. The heat and sand led to actors fainting, equipment breaking down, and lots of money being spent. The movie was taking longer than expected to make and was way over budget, but George Lucas kept his vision clear and persevered.
When Star Wars was released in 1977, it did over $775 million in the Box Office and surpassed Jaws as the highest grossing film of all time.
What if George Lucas quit writing his original draft of Star Wars thinking “no one will enjoy this story.”?
What if George Lucas listened to the studios that rejected him about his childish movie script?
Act on that crazy idea, believe in yourself when no one else does, and when you fail keep trying again.
FAIL.
TRY AGAIN.
SUCCEED.
HTSAAIL™
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Sam Walton- His Biggest Failure Led to Walmart’s Biggest Success.
Our HTSAAIL of the Month for March 2019 is Sam Walton.
Sam Walton was the founder of Walmart. Today Walmart is one of the biggest multinational discount department and grocery stores and the 3rd largest employer in the world.
But did you know that before a chain of discount department stores, Sam Walton owned a variety store that he ran successfully that he attributes as one of his biggest failures?
Back in 1945, in the town of Newport, Arkansas Sam Walton purchased a Ben Franklin Variety Store. His goal from the beginning was to be the most successful and profitable store in the region. In just 5 years, Walton achieved his goal. His variety store was grossing over $250,000 a year with a net profit of $30,000- $40,000.
But like every entrepreneur’s story, there are road blocks and failures. When Sam was just beginning his Ben Franklin store, he signed a lease with his landlord that included a 5% kickback of the sales (which was unheard of that time) and did not included an option to renew his lease after 5 years.
By 1950, the landlord refused to renew Sam Walton’s lease which allowed the landlord to take over the successful store and Sam had no choice but to give up his prized success.
This was the absolute lowest point in Sam Walton’s life. As he states
“I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. It really was like a nightmare. I had built the best variety store in the whole region and worked hard in the community, done everything right, and now I was being kicked out of town. It didn’t seem fair. I blamed myself for ever getting suckered into such an awful lease, and I was furious at the landlord….”
At that moment it came down to a choice: give up and sulk in the failure or pick up the pieces and set up his own shop in a whole new area. We all know what Sam Walton decided to do. BUT what if Sam Walton decided to quit the retail business entirely? How different would our retail landscape be? One thing we know for a fact is that a company worth over $400 billion and employs over 2.3 million would not be around.
FAIL.
TRY AGAIN.
SUCCEED.
#HTSAAIL
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As Presidents’ Weekend approaches, we believe that George Washington is the perfect candidate for our February 2019 HTSAAIL of the month.
While the stories of cherry trees and axes are never proven, there were numerous points in George Washington’s life of failure and blunders.
Way before George Washington was leading the American Revolution, Washington started his military career being in charge of a British Colonial force. His decision to place Fort Necessity in a creek bottom that was surrounded by higher ground on 3 sides of the fort proved to be a complete disaster.
He was surrounded by the French very quickly and had to surrender. To make things worse, Washington was fooled to sign a false confession that stated he assassinated a French officer during the battle.
This led to Washington being demoted and his control of the force taken away.
When George Washington started his political career he had a very difficult time connecting with people and public speaking.
In the beginning of the American Revolution, Washington lost many battles including battles in Boston and New York.
With each battle failure, Washington began learning which strategies and battles worked. One of Washington’s biggest successes was at the battle of Trenton.
Washington was able to take over a Hessian outpost. (German troops that were hired by the British Army.) He did so by using a strategy that was designed after learning from mistakes of previous battles. During the battle, Washington fought alongside his troops which led to a huge moral boost amongst the fighters.
This display of courageousness and persistence led the Continental Army to create constant a barrage of the British Army which ultimately led to the British downfall.
If George Washington gave up after tremendous failures and embarrassments in his early military and political careers would he be the same significant figure of history?
If Washington did not look back on his failures in battle and learn from the hardships would he go on to be one of the most successful generals in American History?
As always, the answer is NO.
FAIL.
TRY AGAIN.
SUCCEED.
#HTSAAIL
Sources:
Our December 2018 HTSAAIL™ of the month is Thomas Edison.
We have all heard that Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before he invented the light bulb.
Thomas Edison’s journey followed the same process as any other inventor looking to create a product or change the world.
Fail and Try Again until you Succeed.
But what other facts and interesting quotes did Thomas Edison provide us?
Here are some words of wisdom from Thomas Edison:
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
"When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes.”
"Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!"
Thomas Edison was granted over 1093 patents over his lifetime.
Let us take a moment to think about it.
OVER 1093 patents!
That is over 1000 different inventions ranging from light bulbs to printing telegraph apparatuses!
1 invention alone requires months if not years of failure to finally become a success.
The amount of times an inventor comes to a block in the road and has 2 choices to make: Either quit and give up or try again and finding a way that works.
Thomas Edison is one of our prime examples of NEVER EVER GIVE UP.
FAIL. TRY AGAIN.
SUCCEED.
#HTSAAIL
Sources: Inc.com
]]>Our HTSAAIL of the month for November 2018 is Winston Churchill.
We can write entire books about the accomplishments and witty remarks that Sir Winston Churchill has performed throughout his career but today we will focus on the closing remarks of a speech that he gave to his alma mater on October 29, 1941; a year after Dunkirk occurred.
“But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period--I am addressing myself to the School--surely from this period of ten months, this is the lesson:
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy…..
….Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable…”
His closing remarks absolutely align with our FAIL and TRY AGAIN motto.
Absolutely never give up in anything that you do, no matter how big or small.
Do not focus on the failure of something, rather look to the opportunities that lie ahead of you after failing and learning from your mistakes. Take every day as a new way to approach an issue or problem. Be persistent, and look right into the eyes of the task. Know that with every mistake and failure, success and victory is one step closer.
Sources: UWaterloo
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Our October HTSAAIL of the month is Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is one of the most well known athletes around the world. From Chicago Bull championships in the 1990s to a Jordan brand that brings in over $1 billion a year, Michael Jordan has overcome many failures and obstacles to succeed.
Instead of repeating his biography that many of us have heard and read over time, we will share some of his best quotes that exemplify FAIL. TRY AGAIN. SUCCEED.
“I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
“Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”
“My father used to say that it's never too late to do anything you wanted to do. And he said, 'You never know what you can accomplish until you try.”
“Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night.
“If you quit once it becomes a habit. Never quit.”
“I've always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come.”
Would Michael Jordan be known as MJ around the world if he quit after not making the varsity basketball team as a sophomore in high school?
Would Michael Jordan hit that game winning shot in the playoffs if he said to himself “I’ve missed thousands of shots in my career, I will probably miss this one too, let me pass the ball to my teammate instead.”
Be like Mike everyday. Take your shots, miss, but keep going back up for the shot until you finally score that game winning shot.
FAIL. TRY AGAIN. SUCCEED.
#HTSAAIL
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You might know Mark Cuban as the blunt honest billionaire shark from the hit TV show Shark Tank. He is the majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks and an investor/businessman in multiple business endeavors.
Mark Cuban aligns perfectly with the HTSAAIL message. Before all the billions of dollars, the NBA Sports teams, and private jets came failure, lots of it.
Here are some of the things that Mark Cuban has failed at:
Being a Short Order Cook:
The only way Mark knew the food was ready was by sampling it. A big no-no in the restaurant business.
Being a Server:
Mark struggled opening up bottles of wine for patrons. Corks would constantly fall into the bottle.
His First Business:
Mark’s first venture was selling powered milk. His only customers were his parents.
Being Fired from his First Sales Job:
Cuban’s first sales job was with a software company. He self taught himself about the software by reading all the manual books available. After pursing and closing a deal with a client (against the CEO’s orders) and bringing a check back to his boss for $1,500, Mark was fired on the spot for disobeying orders. This was the moment that led Cuban to go into business for himself.
What if Mark Cuban failed after his venture and gave up on entrepreneurship?
What if after being fired from his sales job even though he secured them a client , Mark Cuban quit on business and went to safe job instead of venturing out on his own?
Would we even know about Mark Cuban then? Probably not.
What did Mark Cuban do instead?
He FAILED and TRIED AGAIN until he SUCCEEDED.
#HTSAAIL
"I've learned that it doesn't matter how many times you failed, you only have to be right once. I tried to sell powdered milk. I was an idiot lots of times, and I learned from them all." – Mark Cuban
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