Failure is at the root of every success

“Defeat is the prelude to every great success story,” says Frank Hickingbotham, the founder of TCBY and the RMIT [richest man in town] of Little Rock, Arkansas. He notes, “There is no such thing as failure unless you quit, and I never quit. I had several setbacks and I tried to learn a lesson from every one of those defeats, but I never, ever quit.” For RMITs, all defeats are temporary; they are rarely down for the count, and they have a near-limitless capacity to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and set about trying their next big idea.

While researching his book, The Richest Man in Town, W. Randall Jones traveled to 100 American localities to talk to the richest man about the secrets of his success. I don't know if the book is any good, but it formed the basis for an interesting article, "The Failures Club", which argued convincingly that every successful person rises from the ashes of a string of failures.

I suspect that many people don't even bother to start their own businesses since they've heard that 70% of small businesses fail in the first year. One of the premises of Microbusiness Independence is that you need to prepare for failure, keeping your startup costs low so that you can bounce onto the next idea if your first shot doesn't pan out. We've had several failures along the way, and we learned from each experience, coming closer to independence.

What was your biggest failure? Did you learn anything from it?

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Wetknee home Homesteading ebook Microbusiness ebook Appalachian ecology ebook Chicken ebooks Search News Recent comments Blog archive Tags Contact us Links Innovations: Deer deterrent Chicken waterer	Failure is at the root of every success “Defeat is the prelude to every great success story,” says Frank Hickingbotham, the founder of TCBY and the RMIT [richest man in town] of Little Rock, Arkansas. He notes, “There is no such thing as failure unless you quit, and I never quit. I had several setbacks and I tried to learn a lesson from every one of those defeats, but I never, ever quit.” For RMITs, all defeats are temporary; they are rarely down for the count, and they have a near-limitless capacity to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and set about trying their next big idea. While researching his book, The Richest Man in Town, W. Randall Jones traveled to 100 American localities to talk to the richest man about the secrets of his success. I don't know if the book is any good, but it formed the basis for an interesting article, "The Failures Club", which argued convincingly that every successful person rises from the ashes of a string of failures. I suspect that many people don't even bother to start their own businesses since they've heard that 70% of small businesses fail in the first year. One of the premises of Microbusiness Independence is that you need to prepare for failure, keeping your startup costs low so that you can bounce onto the next idea if your first shot doesn't pan out. We've had several failures along the way, and we learned from each experience, coming closer to independence. What was your biggest failure? Did you learn anything from it? Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed. Add a comment