Success is Never Final–Failure is Never Fatal

Not long ago I was with a trusted business partner and friend for dinner. During the course of the evening we were sharing thoughts on business strategy, effort, and dedication. I shared with him the idea I call the Three D’s–Desire, Dedication, and Discipline. He shared with me his favorite quote “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal”.

I immediately fell in love with that quote. As I began to think about using it in my writing I thought I had better find out the original source for that quote. As it turns out it is most commonly attributed to either Winston Churchill or John Wooden. Further reading bore out the fact that many have used it in some form or another adding to it other parts and pieces.

It is easy to bask in the glow of Success, and far too easy to forget that Success is never final. Often basking in our current success leads to becoming complacent, which can cause us to get lazy when it comes to our daily efforts to constantly improve. In fact, that complacent attitude can lead to failure. It is important to always remember that our current, or past successes, are only temporary unless we build constantly on those successes.

In as much as it is important to remember that Success is never final, it is equally important to remember that Failure is Never Fatal. Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, but he struck out 1330 times. The lesson here is that failing is never the end result if we are willing to learn from our failures and put the effort in to achieve success. It is just as easy to lose ourselves in our failure as it is to lose ourselves in our success. The next time you fail, take the time to evaluate what went wrong, get up, brush yourself off, learn the lesson from the immediate failure and turn your thoughts and attitude to success.