21/09/2022
People do not quit an activity they want to do because they fail once; they give up when they fail again and again.
Supposing you want to learn how to cook. When people reject the dishes you make, again and again, wouldn’t you want to quit? You will assume cooking is not for you because your dishes were not good enough despite doing your best. This is true for would-be entrepreneurs also; they quit when their best efforts lead to one failure after another.
I have failed countless times in our farming business. If I knew that farming is very difficult, I would not have gone into it. But I could not quit because I had nowhere to go. We sold all our assets in Manila when we moved to Bukidnon. And we invested everything we had in the farm, so I had no other option but to make things work.
As I fought to survive, I realized that failure is my friend, not the enemy. I learned that failure is a feedback mechanism that tells me what is right from what is wrong and what will work from what will not. Doing my best is never enough because if I choose the wrong strategy, my best will only lead to more frustration.
Rejection is the same. When people reject me, they are not rejecting me as a person but telling me that my skills are not acceptable. If I want them to accept me, I must be willing to change. Most of those who fail insist that there is nothing wrong with them, so it is the responsibility of those around them to change, not theirs.
Over time I realized that God allows me to fail to protect me from major mistakes in the future. By being sensitive to failures when they are small, He directs me to the path that will bring me success. Unfortunately, most would insist on staying on a particular course, hoping things will change if they persist. They need to know that it is insanity to do something over and over again, expecting a different result.
While problems allow you to improve your business, failure and rejections will enable you to improve yourself as a person. But to use them to your advantage, you must accept with humility that the only person you can change is you. Therefore, you must always be willing to adjust.
