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Before we get started with my confession, let’s first be clear on the definition we are using here of “guilty.”

Guilty means to admit responsibility; confess.

Since most people associate negative events to the word “guilty” I figured you would race over here to get some dirt, right?

Noooooo… not you.

Let’s begin.

I’m guilty of being like great companies who pour their hear and soul into creating great products… but find some of those products to not be so great. I’ve created products like…

• Sony Betamax <- Failed!
• Coca Cola- New Coke <- Failed!
• Polaroid – Instant Home Movies <- Failed!
• Pepsi – Crystal Pepsi <- Failed!
• McDonalds – Arch Deluxe Burger <- Failed!
• Apple – Lisa <- Failed!
• Levi’s – Type 1 Jeans <- Failed!
• IBM – PCjr <- Failed!
• Ford – Edsel <- Failed!

When I say I created products like those, that means I am guilty of having created my fair share of products that have failed. No one wants to have a failed product. But it happens. So I’m guilty.

Babe Ruth is guilty of having struck out, Michael Jordan is guilty of having missed game winning shots… it’s life, get over it and get going.

WOW (Words Of Wisdom) Moment: Never carry yesterday’s defeat into today’s victory.

So if you have the guts to create products, art, music, books, food etc and some of them fail miserably, know you  will certainly have critics mercilessly pouncing on you and having a heyday.

But like the great people and companies that still stand today despite their product defeats… don’t be discouraged or depressed but be determined, lick your wounds and keep it moving.

That said, I’m also guilty of having created some incredible products across multiple markets that continue to serve the greater good for those using them.

LESSON LEARNED: Now matter who you are, no matter how great the idea, you will have products that fail. But the failure is not permanent, it’s just a passage to the next product that will work.

WOW (Words Of Wisdom) Moment: You’ll never get it right unless you’re willing to get it wrong.

I’m guilty of being like the American people who voted politicians into office because the politician said what they can do and what they will do …but they didn’t do it. Only to leave America holding the bag and paying for it as the politicians ducked and dodged responsibility pointing the figures across the table saying “it’s their fault.”

What do I mean here?

I mean I’m guilty of having trusted the wrong people. Of having  (hired) voted people into my corporate office and trusting them to deliver on our brand promise. But all they did was play politics, make excuses, under-perform, fail the company, not live the vision and values, and ultimately let some of our customers and clients down… all while collecting checks. And once they were given the boot I was left holding the bag, being blamed and having to stand strong, be responsible and clean up the mess.

(Don’t you think Rupert Murdoch realizes now, after that fact that he trusted the wrong people?)

When people are collecting checks you’re the best thing that ever happened to them, and when you stop paying them for their non-performance you’re the worst thing to ever happen to them and they go out of their way to try to destroy the reputation you took years to build.

LESSON LEARNED: Don’t just hire on resumes and promises because everyone looks good on paper. Do a value and character test and make sure your values are aligned and their character is good and strong. Also, check who you trusting, especially if they have unproven character.

WOW (Words Of Wisdom) Moment: There is a high price to be paid for having the wrong people around the right dream.

I’m guilty of having been one of the smaller little dot.com start ups in the late 1990′s with a great idea… gone bad.

Remember this…

• Webvan (1999-2001) raised $375 million in an IPO and they failed, but the failure of Webvan didn’t make it scam.
• Pets.com (1998-2000) Amazon.com-backed Pets.com and raised 82.5 million in an IPO in February 2000 before collapsing nine months later. Pets.com failure didn’t make it a scam.
• Kozmo.com (1998-2001) raised about $280 million and even secured a $150 million promotion deal with Starbucks. But it failed, yet Kozmo’s faiure didn’t make it a scam.
• Flooz.com (1998-2001) raised $35 million from investors and signed retail giants such as Tower Records, Barnes & Noble, and went bankrupt in August 2001. But it’s failure didn’t make it a scam.
• eToys.com (1997-2001) raised $166 million in a May 1999 IPO, but failed and closed in March 2001. But it wasn’t a scam. In fact, they are making another run at it.
• Boo.com (1998-2000) burned through $160 million before its liquidation in May 2000. It failed, but it wasn’t a scam.
• MVP.com (1999-2000) was backed by sports greats John Elway, Michael Jordan, and Wayne Gretzky and $65 million. A few months after its launch, MVP.com entered into an $85 million, four-year agreement with CBS in which the network would provide advertising in exchange for an equity stake in the e-tailer. Yet barely a year later, CBS and its online affiliate SportsLine.com killed the agreement because MVP.com failed to pay the network an agreed-upon $10 million per year. The game was over for MVP.com soon afterward. It failed, but it wasn’t a scam.
• Go.com (1998-2001) a combination of Disney’s online properties and Infoseek, but it failed and Disney took a write-off of $790 million. Go.com still exists, but it carries only feeds from other Disney Web properties.

…now, in the late 1990′s I started an online venture with just under $100,000 in investor capital. It worked for several months and people were singing my praises… and then it failed… and the small handful of investors cried foul and said it was scam …WTF, are they on medication?

Bernie Madoff, now that’s a scam. What I had was (for a lot less money than the body count above) …a failed business model and lost pennies by comparison to the bigger flops of that time.

In my mind, we got off easy. We failed fast with a smaller amount.

WOW (Words Of Wisdom) Moment: It’s better to fail fast and cheap, than to fail slow and expensive.

LESSON LEARN: When people invest in a business and it’s going great, you’re a divine intervention in their life, but when that business fails you’re the devil and you ran a scam. Go big, but make sure you go big with investors and partners who have the stomach and guts and understand the risk. That when the ideas wins, you all win equally based on shares but if it losses, you all lose equally, also based on shares. But no one person becomes the scapegoat of convenient blame.

So in the face of failure, what is success?

Each of us define what success is for us.

Unfortunately, many of us live our lives by other peoples definition of success and in an attempt to be accepted and not rejected we will many times go to great lengths to be successful by their terms and standards.

That said, no matter how you define success, I’m sure we can agree that success is a moving target.

Getting a tricycle at 5 years old may of been a success back then. Getting one today may be bizarre, unless you have some circus thing going on.

That aside, understand that it’s decisions that create success, it’s decisions that keep success and it’s decisions that grow success.

Who you decide to hire… who you decide to trust… what you decide to believe… who you decide to follow… what you decide to read… etc.

When you consider how many decision you will make, you’re bound to make some bad decisions, regardless of how successful you’ve become and how much money you have accumulated.

The archives of business history, and my life are filled with stories to testify to this fact.

However we don’t have to reach to far back to find a story to serve this point.

Just look at Netflix’s.

The company just short of 2 years ago had it’s stock trading at just above $300 a share. And right at the high point the company leadership made a “decision” …a decision that would send hundreds of thousands of subscribers running for the exits and send their stock plummeting to just under $70 a share and flip the company upside down from profitable, to an announcement this week that projects they will lose money for the entire year of 2012.

That’s a snapshot of Netflix.

There has been other costly decisions made, while at the same time they face rapidly rising cost of content, lose of content contracts and getting the squeeze from competitors that include RedBox and Hulu with new streaming competition from Google and Amazon.

Okay, so what’s the point.

The point is, you must stay frosty.

Success can be cozy, but when you get comfy and cozy you can get a little cocky and that gets costly as bad decision begin to mount.

WOW (Words Of Wisdom) Moment: Success is no insulation to bad decisions and it offers up no immunity to mistakes.

WOW (Words Of Wisdom) Moment: What you will find when you make more money is that your mistakes are more costly.

And all along that road people will give you an ear full as you march forward and make your fair share of mistakes and failures.

So when you fail, don’t allow those around you who want to pick the scab of those wounds to bother you.

You’re earning your strips.

WOW (Words Of Wisdom) Moment: Maturity comes from mistakes and mentorship and despite how much mentoring get, you will still have your fair share of mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes, and you only become crucified by them when your mistakes are public. Which means you had guts to go for it in the open field, not in some closet corner.

Keep those guts. And let the losers fail in private and sweep it under their rugs.

I will continue to press onward and upward and take whatever licks I must take on the way in terms of failures, mistakes and criticisms.

WOW (Words Of Wisdom) Moment: I fear no failure… I fear no mistakes… I fear no criticism, I fear no man. For God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and sound mind.

I’m guilty of being like great men and women who didn’t wait for others to give them permission to be great. They saw their own greatness and they stepped into, only to be first met with failure prior to tasting victory.

I’m guilty of being like…

• Bill Gates: Gates didn’t seem like a shoe-in for success after dropping out of Harvard and starting a failed first business with Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen called Traf-O-Data. While this early idea didn’t work, Gates’ later work did, creating the global empire that is Microsoft.
• Akio Morita: You may not have heard of Morita but you’ve undoubtedly heard of his company, Sony. Sony’s first product was a rice cooker that unfortunately didn’t cook rice so much as burn it, selling less than 100 units. This first setback didn’t stop Morita and his partners as they pushed forward to create a multi-billion dollar company.
• Henry Ford: While Ford is today known for his innovative assembly line and American-made cars, he wasn’t an instant success. In fact, his early businesses failed and left him broke five time before he founded the successful Ford Motor Company.
• R. H. Macy: Most people are familiar with this large department store chain, but Macy didn’t always have it easy. Macy started seven failed business before finally hitting big with his store in New York City.
• Robert Goddard: Goddard today is hailed for his research and experimentation with liquid-fueled rockets, but during his lifetime his ideas were often rejected and mocked by his scientific peers who thought they were outrageous and impossible. Today rockets and space travel don’t seem far-fetched at all, due largely in part to the work of this scientist who worked against the feelings of the time.
• Jerry Seinfeld: Just about everybody knows who Seinfeld is, but the first time the young comedian walked on stage at a comedy club, he looked out at the audience, froze and was eventually jeered and booed off of the stage. Seinfeld knew he could do it, so he went back the next night, completed his set to laughter and applause, and the rest is history.
• Tom Landry: As the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, Landry brought the team two Super Bowl victories, five NFC Championship victories and holds the records for the most career wins. He also has the distinction of having one of the worst first seasons on record (winning no games) and winning five or fewer over the next four seasons.

So I want to encourage you, as we enter a new year to know that failure and defeat, critics and haters are all par for the course.

I wish I could say it will be easy. I can’t but I can tell you it will be worth it.

• It’s worth being found guilty of having a passion and purpose so strong that it burns up those around you.
• It’s worth being found guilty of having made mistakes in pursue of a higher purpose.
• It’s worth being found guilty of having given your best and tasted the dirt of defeat as you marched for more life.
• It’s worth being found guilty of giving those around you an equal opportunity and kicking them the hell out when they abuse your trust and betray your confidence.
• It’s worth being found guilty of making wrong decisions in route to making the right decisions.
• It’s worth being found guilty for taking the only life you have and throwing everything you can behind it to sculpt a memorable masterpiece.
• It’s worth being found guilty of having a dream so big that when you talk about it, it irritates those around you with small minds.
• It’s worth being found guilty of having walked away from cherished relationships to protect the picture of your future that you cherish even more.

So if you want to stand with me and excel in 2012 and be found guilty of re-imagining a better you, re-engineering your mind, reinventing yourself, re-energizing your passion and resurrecting your dreams… then let’s do it. I’m your guy.

KNOW you are “The Chosen One!”

You are chosen to lead your family to a better place.
You are chosen to alter your family’s financial legacy.
You are chosen to be a beacon of hope and possibilities for those who follow you.
You are chosen to be brave and courageous to endure the uncertainty on the path of certain success.
You are chosen to step up when others step down, to get up after being knock down to speak up where others suffer in silence.

KNOW you are “The Chosen One!”

• Choose to be guilty of stepping up, not backing down.
• Choose to be guilty of pursuing your dreams, not burying them.
• Choose to be guilty of being strong, not being weak.
• Choose to be guilty of love, not hate.
• Choose to be guilty of being you, not being someone else.
• Choose to be guilty of persisting until you succeed, not quitting because it easiest to do.

Remember, critics are not admired and quitters don’t inspire.

Nobody grows up wanting to be a critic or quitter. You become one or the other when you have no guts to do something really meaningful with your life.

And speaking of critics…

To my critics and haters, I don’t wish you hell, I wish you well.

I don’t mind your unhealthy obsessions with me. It’s flattering that out of a full day of 1,440 minutes you find so much time to make me matter more than many other things in your life.

I’m don’t mind being pillow talk for you with your significant other, or dinner talk because life is so boring for you, that you can only find excitement when my name comes up.

I understand how empty and angry you feel when you see how full of passion I am to pursue my dreams and sprout above my challenges and bounce back from disappointments.

You admire that in me, I know… you told me that when you were around, and now you miss being around that and the idea of me not needing you and wanting you hurts you and the only way you have found to deal with that pain is to turn it towards me with your lies, slander and libel that you think hurts me, but is actually eating away at your soul… not mine.

I understand though, and when you reach the point of emotional maturity I hope you can forgive yourself as much as I’ve already forgiven you.

I feels good to be thought about… no matter the thoughts. I still fill your consciousness because you miss the love, care, laughter, gifts and freedom you had with me. You miss how much you felt alive. You missed how tough I was in pulling out the best in you, you miss watching me hustle tirelessly to sculpt myself and those I come in contact with to unleash the depth of their human potential.

But now you’ve gone to the dark side. You’ve let the regrets and repercussions of your on actions turn into an unbearable bitterness that you are unable to escape right now.

Open yourself to be healed, because the harm you try to do to others is only harming you.

Now, not to be offensive, but in the spirit of joyfully “doing me”, I’d like to wish all my critics and haters a Happy Thanksgiving and a KISS MY A$$ holiday!

“Everyone fears failure. But breakthroughs depend on it. The best companies embrace their mistakes and learn from them.” – Bloomberg BusinessWeek, July 2006 Cover Story “How Failure Breeds Success”

 

Data Sources:

• http://www.cnet.com/1990-11136_1-6278387-1.html
• http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/02/16/50-famously-successful-people-who-failed-at-first/