📅 Thought for today:
‘Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.’
— Bill Gates
#thoughtfortoday #leadership #lessons #success #failure #luck #goodpeople
IN November 1985 I moved to Dallas, Texas, working in software. It is the same month Microsoft released the very first version of Windows, one of three inter-related operating systems they had produced and marketed at that time.
Ten years later, I was working in a start-up formed with two friends (you know what they say about friendship & business) and Mircosoft announced that it was going to improve the Internet – and take control of it with its own proprietary file formats. The project was declawed and effectively terminated a year later.
It is funny how we gravitate towards success.
If you had the chance to work with someone who had succeeded once or someone who had not succeeded twice, who would you choose?
Success tends to come to those that work hard, surround themselves with good, competent people and have some luck. First-time success needs more of the latter.
Failure can also come to those that work hard and surround themselves with good people.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, yet successful people are more prone to either ascribe their success to their own hard work or recognise the hard work of others; unsuccessful people either blame the people around them and their luck; or recognise the lessons to be learned and come back stronger.
This gives clues to what to ask either the successful or unsuccessful person – why didn’t you fail/succeed? Their answers will tell you a lot about them as people.
