Advice for Small Business Owners

Life is a Roller Coaster

By Elie Kochman on June 21st, 2010

I listened to a talk this afternoon in which the speaker started off with a single statement:

We all screw up on occasion.

While that’s certainly true, it seems that some people are more prone to errors than others. Some people seem to have the Midas touch, with everything they come in contact with turning to success. Others seem to struggle at every turn.

While I would not dare to say that we are all presented with the same opportunities, I would venture to propose that what truly sets apart those who are considered to be a success is how they handle those opportunities with which they are presented. J.K. Rowling, in one of the Harry Potter books, makes a statement:

It’s our choices that determine who we are, far more than our abilities.

That is to say, talent is only a small part of who we are, with the choices we have made, how we have chosen to respond to challenges and opportunities being what truly defines our character.

When we encounter a blunder of our own making, we can choose to handle this realization in multiple ways. We can fret over what might have been, over the loss that occurred as a result. Or, alternatively, we can move forward and take the lessons learned from the mistake to prevent a recurrence, and to better equip ourselves for the next challenge in our path.

In a recent discussion, I was asked whether, in my opinion, successful people are more lucky than others.

My answer was similar to the opinion expressed above – that it is not so much which opportunities are presented to a person that will shape their destiny, but rather how they respond to such opportunities that they encounter. A successful person has learned to treat each mistake, each failure, as a learning opportunity at a minimum, and has often learned to extract success from what others might have considered to be a foregone conclusion.

How about you? How do you react to a mistake? How do you react to an opportunity? Are you taking the chance to learn and experience? Or are you focusing on what might have been, or what you wish had been?

Related posts:

1. Reactions to Mistakes
2. A Matter of Choice
3. A Time for Action
4. Tolerance for Error
5. Early Failure Can Impact a Career