I imagine that most of us would like to remove pain from life, pain is a natural part of life and reminds us of our humanity and invariably strengthens our character. Unfortunately our society is very much set up to despise "failure" and to view it as a "least favourable outcome" or something to be avoided at all costs.
Our culture has become ever more "protective" and I would argue that this short-changes us all of the valuable life lessons that can be learned. Financial advice is subjective, rarely is there only "one way" to do anything - of course sensible controls should be in place and advisers should act with integrity, but reality says - we are all human and in every sphere of life there are "broken" people getting it wrong - some deliberately, others unintentionally.
Obviously like all decent IFAs my job is to provide clients with the best advice I can. Sometimes I get it wrong. The key question is what has been learned? and not to give up at the first sign of difficulty.
As many children return to school today, I wonder how much freedom we grant them to fail - as opposed to being continously caught up in the cycle of academic "success". I hope that my daughters know that they are free to fail - that its not just ok to fail but also quite important...that failure can be good. After all, the road to success is one of failure. Just a thought... here are 3 great "failures" or more accurately - people that had "failed" but chose not to give up:
1. Donald Trump was once $1billion (billion!)in debt in the 1990s.
"I refused to give up. Defeat is not in my vocabulary".
2. Winston Churchill lost every election for public office until he became Prime Minister.
"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense"
3. Michael Jordan was once dropped from his high school basketball team
"I've failed over and over again in life. That is why I succeed".
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