Internet Marketing Blog
Why Losing is the Path to Winning
One of my best friends is not particularly good-looking, but he’s always dating really attractive women. I wanted to know what his secret was, so I asked him. He said “I talk to a lot of women. Most of them are not into me, but some are.” I then asked him if all those rejections made him feel bad. I’ll never forget his answer: “It’s like basketball: you make some and you miss some.”
What if we could redefine losing? What if losing was a necessary step toward winning? What would happen if we allowed ourselves to fail as much as needed in order to achieve our goals?
One of the best salespeople I know loves cold-calling. I mean, he LOVES it. He knows he has something great to sell and only people who want it will buy it. The rest will say no and he’s OK with that. It’s not personal and he knows it. The more people he calls, the more money he makes. “Who cares if some people don’t buy as long as some do?” he told me.
Thinking you need to win every time is very dangerous; it puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on you and it stops you from trying new, unproven ideas (and these are the best kinds of ideas).
One of my best friends has a drug problem. When I talked to a friend we have in common about doing an intervention, his response was “there’s a 10% chance that talking to him will work. It’s just not worth it.” I responded “that’s better than a 0% chance, which is exactly what our odds are if we don’t talk to him.”
Try new stuff all the time. Go after big, crazy dreams even if your chances aren’t good. It’s just a matter of time until you hit a home run. And even if you don’t, wouldn’t you rather know that the reason you didn’t make it was that it didn’t work out and not for a lack of trying?
About The Author
Zeke Camusio
Zeke Camusio is a serial entrepreneur, marketing speaker, author of The Internet Marketing Bible and CEO of Digital Aptitude, an Internet marketing agency based out of Portland, Oregon. LIKE us on Facebook to be the first one to know when we post new content.
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Zeke,
I really like this reframe. You have to lose before you can win. It’s that path to mastery. I had someone describe it to me like a pyramid. At first, you have to take a lot of shots, then as you get better, you don’t need to take as many.
Thanks for sharing!
Joshua
It is also important to keep in mind that everytime you “lose”, you learn from the experience so you can “win” next time.
Zeke, as usual, another inspiring post. I have a tech question: when I share these on Twitter, what comes up is @sharethis. Are you aware of that and are you aware of when someone tweets your posts?
Best wishes,
Patricia
Hi Patricia,
Yes, that’s how ShareThis sets it up by default. Changing it has been on my to-do list for a couple of weeks. I’ll make sure it gets done. Thank you.