The Highway to Success
Successful people identify which highways don’t lead to success in life, and they avoid traveling those same roads in the future. Here's how you learn to navigate your own Highway to Success...
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Born in 1795, John Keats was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets in the 18th Century. He was a contemporary of authors Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and William Wordsworth, both great literary men of the era. Of his early writings, critics like John Wilson Crocker declared his literary works to be nonsensical, “the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language,” and urged him to give up poetry.
Prior to his untimely death from tuberculosis at the age of 25, he penned his third, and what critics today deem his best volume of poetry, “Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems.” In this volume of work are what many consider three of the finest poems in the English language.
When asked about the criticism of his earlier writings and his initial failures as a poet, Keats noted,
“Failure is, in essence, a highway to success.”
It was his willingness to persevere through the challenges of life, and to keep going, that eventually allowed the world to discover his poetic genius, and his works today remain some of the best examples of romantic poetry in existence. Had he allowed the criticism of others to sway him, his early failures to define him, he would have lived an unremarkable life.
Of the fifty-four poems he authored, these are considered the pinnacle of his work. Today, his poetic style ranks him, along with the sonnets of William Shakespeare, as one of the greatest lyric poets in English history.
John Keats learned, early in life, that everyone at times will fail. But also learned an even more valuable lesson in the process.
Not everyone learns from failure.
The highway to success for Keats was marred with starts and stops. There were detours, roadblocks, U-turns, and at times, delays.
It’s the same for each of us today.
At times, everyone fails.
The problem, not everyone learns.
Successful people learn from failure. They discover what doesn’t work, and they don’t do that again. They identify which highways don’t lead to success in life, and they avoid traveling those same roads in the future.
I was recently with Joseph McClendon III, one of the most sought-after Ultimate Performance Specialists in the world. He shared with a small, intimate group of us that 87% of entrepreneurs fail within the first three years. They start down the Highway of Success only to experience a catastrophic engine failure, a cataclysmic wreck, or they simply run out of money and can’t afford to fuel the vehicle to keep going.
Only a mere 3% to 5% remain truly experience real success in life, creating the income and outcomes they desire. They work their way through the detours, roadblocks, U-turns, traffic delays, inclement weather, mechanical failures, flat tires, and more – all to go one mile further down the Highway to Success.
History is full of examples of successful people who, like Keats, not only experienced failure but learned from it and kept moving forward.
Thomas Edison famously said he failed over 10,000 times in his quest to develop the incandescent lightbulb. Each failure was a journey down a road that proved unsuccessful. Edison learned from each failure, identifying what didn’t work, taking note of it, and trying something different.
He kept driving down a different road, over and over again, until he found his Highway to Success.
Henry Ford, the creator of the V-8 engine, urged his scientists to craft an eight-cylinder engine block in one piece. The design was placed on paper, but his engineers all agreed it was impossible. Ford knew his Highway to Success lie through the development of this engine.
Ford’s response to his engineers was, “Produce it anyway.”
He challenged his engineers to work their way through failure, learn the lessons failure wanted to teach them and keep moving forward on the Highway to Success.
Basketball great, Michael Jordan, also learned that everyone fails. After being cut from his high school varsity team during his sophomore year, his mother helped young Michael understand the Highway to Success was, for him, hard work.
Jordan remembers well his mother’s admonition, “Get in the gym and work harder,”
Michael Jordan failed, but he learned from his failure. After an illustrious fifteen-year career in the NBA, winning six NBA championships, he retired with the highest scoring average in the league. Today, MJ (as he is affectionately known) is the principal owner and chairman of the Charlotte Hornets.
MJ failed, but he learned from failure, to become one of the greatest to ever play the game of basketball. His exploits on the court are legendary.
Jamie Kern Lima made history, selling her makeup company, IT Cosmetics, for $1.2 billion dollars in cash to Loreal, becoming the organization’s first female CEO in the process. But her Highway to Success had its low points as well. Jamie started IT Cosmetics in her apartment and was rejected time and time again by the makeup industry.
She finally landed a spot on the QVC shopping channel, having to borrow money she didn’t have to purchase the inventory required to be on the show. Jamie had one shot, one chance, to sell the product she believed in as an “unknown” to the viewing audience. Anxious, nervous, and afraid, she made her pitch, sold out of product, and went on to be one of the most successful brands on the QVC Network before attracting the attention of the major players in the industry.
Jamie worked her way through the detours, roadblocks, U-turns, traffic delays, inclement weather, mechanical failures, and flat tires, each time learning, modifying, improving, and trying again until she found her Highway to Success and cashed in.
There are three important lessons each of these highly successful people learned early on. If you learn these lessons and apply them yourself, you too can find your own Highway to Success.
First, remember that everyone fails. We all trip, fall, or get knocked down at times. It’s part of the learning process. For example, you didn’t go from crawling on a floor to standing on two feet as a toddler without falling more than a few times along the way. But each time you fell down, you learned something. Like Edison, you discovered what didn’t work, and you kept trying until you got it right.
As Og Mandino famously penned, “I will persist until I succeed.”
The second lesson you must learn if you want to find your own Highway to Success is this. If you keep doing more of the same, you won’t change the outcome. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. Nothing changes until something changes.
If you keep choosing failure, you will keep failing.
Edison, Ford, MJ, and Jamie all learned from their failures and chose not to repeat them. Successful people learn from failure. To be successful, you must learn the lessons failure is trying to teach you.
The third lesson each of these individuals learned on the Highway to Success is an obvious one, but it is often overlooked because of its simplicity.
Life isn’t always fair, and we can’t change that life brings to us. What we can change is how we respond to it. Life is a series of choices and consequences. We get to choose the choices and experience the consequences of those choices as a result.
Make better choices, learn the lessons life is trying to teach us, and we experience better outcomes in life. We experience less failure and more success.
Isn’t that what we ultimately all want anyway, less failure and more success?
Life is a Highway. You and I are alike in one way. We are all on a journey called Life. The question each of us must answer is whether or not the road we are on is a Highway that leads to more success in life. The good news is we get to choose which road we travel, and for how long.
Yes, there will be detours, roadblocks, U-turns, traffic delays, inclement weather, mechanical failures, flat tires, and more – all to go one mile further down the Highway of Success.
We get to choose which road we travel, and for how long. We get to choose how we will respond to what life throws our way, both the good and the bad.
Successful people realize they will experience failure on the Highway to Success, and they choose to learn from it, adapt and adjust, and keep moving forward.
Remember, Robert McClendon said only 3-5% of those who start the journey actually end up successfully navigating the Highway to Success.
What about you?
Remember, everyone fails, but not everyone learns.
Successful people learn from failure.
Failure is, in a sense, a Highway to Success.
One last thing…
If you realize you’re NOT on the right road, and the Highway you’re navigating isn’t going to get you to the place in life where you are truly successful, creating the income and impact you desire in life, you don’t have to stay on this highway.
In life, there are off-ramps and on-ramps.
If you’re not on the Highway to Success, make the choice to take the next available exit, put a new destination in your GPS, and navigate your way onto a new road.
Truth is, there are many Highways to Success, as success means different things to different people. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Michael Jordan, and Jamie Kern Lima all built their own Highway to Success, and so can you.
What you’ve perhaps realized by now is you’re building your OWN Highway to Success as you go through life. Each choice you make lays down another smooth mile of asphalt or a series of potholes, detours, and roadblocks you’ve got to navigate.
So, if you don’t like where your Highway is taking you, either exit and get on a different road or turn the road you’re on in the direction of Success – and keep moving forward.
C.S. Lewis summed this life lesson up well when he said, “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
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