From Failures to Success - How a Leader Thinks and Behaves

As humans, we often allow ourselves to be defeated to easily. When I was younger, I often allowed my failures to dictate who I was. However, I have learned that "A man is not defeated by his opponents but by himself." (Christian Smuts Prime Minister of South Africa)

Now that some people have began to look towards me for leadership, I have gained a new understanding about leadership that can have a lasting positive affect on others and this is why this article is titled From Failure to Success; How a leader thinks and behaves.

From my own experience, I will first try to explain the barriers that prohibited me from first succeeding and perhaps you can learn from my experience.

There is an inherent self-sabotaging behavior which some of use have adapted into our lives. I would often begin a project with the expectation of failing. I realized what you think you are; you will become.

Therefore, I decided to think just the opposite of what I was thinking. Emerson, the poet wrote: "What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies with us."

We must cultivate that we are special, wonderfully and intricately made to do good work. We must see there is a different between failing and being a failure. We all will miss the mark at some point in our lives, but we must remember what Eric Hoffer said: "It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression."

Another self-sabotaging behavior is afraid to take risks. Life is about risk and if you are afraid to take risks, you will not experience what life has to offer you.

How a leader perceives failures and how a Leader thinks and behaves:

If you want to think like a leader, you must change the attitude that is preventing you from being the best version of you. Success is not about whom you are but how you appear to your self.

A leader believes in his mind that he is victorious. Visualize yourself as though you have completed the task successfully. For example, Mario Andretti, the 15-time Indianapolis 500 formula 1 racer, would visualize every turn every pass before every race. He would see himself taking the checker flag.

Do not become lazy. Robert Half said it best: "Laziness is the secret ingredient that goes into failure."

Meditate on what you want to accomplish for the day and cross it off your list when completed. Keep a journal of all your accomplishments and referred back to it whenever you feel you are about to revert into that self-sabotaging behavior.

Change your speech. The same old vocabulary that we use and cling to is sabotaging our lives. It is said when interviewing top industry leaders, never once did anyone say the word failure. Leaders use positive words. For example, replace the word failed or failure with the phrase learned experiences.

If we are to learn from our experiences, we must change how we think of ourselves and believe we are winners. We must keep track of our success. Moreover, we should take more risk. We must used positive vocabulary and replace the word failure with missed opportunity. Let the missed opportunity point you to success. Use the missed opportunities as stepping-stones to your dream life.

Remember failures or miss opportunities are part of the productive part of being successful. It provides the roads you do not have to travel again, the mountains you do not have to climb again and the valleys you do not have to cross again.