The other day I was scrolling through facebook … I know … I’m still working on it … and I came across a video about Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba. This billionaire has a pretty cool story. For instance, he applied for a job at a local KFC. 24 applied, 23 got the job …. He was the only one that didn’t.
The theme of the video was Jack Ma’s secret to success: Failure.
However, the most interesting part was the early days of Alibaba, back in 1999 when he had only 17 people in his start up. As it turns out, for inspiration, Jack told them tales of failure, instead of success stories: Success stories pump you up, he said, but when you share a lot of failure stories, you learn.
That really sparked my curiosity. As a firm believer in making decisions based on what brings more love into your life, I had to reconcile this for myself.
I think I got too zeroed in on the word failure. My initial interpretation there being: did Jack Ma scare his team into performing?
The more I thought about it, I realized, I simply missed the word learn. While I enjoy success stories, just as much as everyone … far more important than the sugar high are the action steps that will be taken. I think that’s where the failure learning becomes indispensable. Not to judge, but to honor the ones who came before us by taking where they’ve gone and using it as a platform to go even farther.
That sounds a lot more like bringing more love into my life.
What pumps you up? What helps you learn?
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