Richard Branson talks about Learning from Failure

 

Seth Godin:

I've been struggling with this business for two years, the economy seems to be falling apart, I'm ready to give up. What does Richard Branson tell me to do?

Richard Branson:

Do everything you can to survive and not to give up. As long as you tried everything you can, then if you fail, you'll sleep okay and you'll pick yourself up and when things are better you'll start again. If on the other hand, you give up too readily you will forever kick yourself. I wish you all the best in your quest, because I'm afraid there's a lot of people who will fail.

And I think the other important thing is not to take failure too seriously. It's something that happens to... something like 80% of all small business people fail. They either go into chapter 11 or actually go bankrupt and that's a lot of people and some people take that really badly and they should realize that the important thing is just to learn from it and come back and start again.

An awful lot of really big multimillionaires and billionaires who have been through 2 or 3 bankrupt companies in their lives have learnt from them and have come back stronger. It is what limited companies were designed for by governments. It was to say to people... try things, and if you fail, it shouldn't affect you personally, people know the risks in dealing with you.

Don't be embarrassed about your failures as long as you tried everything you can to avoid it, don't take it too personally.