What If This is Why You Failed?
A Strategic Lesson From A Renowned Inventor
In the early 1980s, there was a farmer named Mike Yurosek. He was a California farmer popularly known as the “father of the baby carrot”.
Baby carrot did not originally exist nor was it a separate breed on its own. But it came to existence because of what a man — Mike Yurosek did.
What happened?
Yurosek found out that many of his carrots were ugly which automatically means they were not going to sell. All of his effort on the farm became futile. Can you imagine all the processes it takes a farmer to wield, plant and do all kinds of things every day but just to come to the point of harvest and see something termed "ugly"?
This is synonymous with you giving your all to something but in the end, the result is nothing to write home about.
I am sure Yurosek would have been very sad and disappointed and perhaps decided not to bother going to the farm anymore. "Let me just discard these ugly carrots and find my way home to do something else with my life" — This could have been his thoughts.
The carrots he expected at his harvest were ugly and not acceptable to be sold in the grocery store. They were that ugly!
I am sure they would have looked at those ugly carrots at the store and said, "You know what Yurosek, we know you are a good farmer but please discard this ugly-looking harvest of yours, they are not the kind we receive here. Nobody would buy these!"
How devastating that would have been for him.
What would be his next alternative? To discard the ugly carrots and start the whole planting all over or to just keep those carrots to himself at home till they get rotten away!
But guess what? He did neither of these.
Since the carrots were not the shape and size that could be accepted and sold at the grocery store — instead of tossing them off — he decided to use an industrial bean cutter to shape them into acceptable sizes and shapes!
He refused to discard them just like that. He gave himself the task to shape his failure into beauty. He subjected the ugly carrots to a process of sharpening and pruning and guess what, the end of it was so beautiful.
The end product of that cutting became what is called "baby carrot" today. The success of baby carrots was so overwhelming that by 1987, the consumption rate of carrots increased by 30 percent. Not just that, as of today, baby carrots consist of 70 percent of total carrot sales.
As a pathfinder, I will give you three lessons here that you need to apply in your crafts, business, career and life.
Believe in Yourself
Truthfully speaking, life will not always be fair. There are times when the output of your input will be ugly and commands no great acceptance. There are times when the enormous labour you put in to achieve your goals, visions and dreams would seem to yield nothing.
There are countless times when it will seem that nothing is forthcoming despite all the efforts you are making in your crafts, business, career and life generally. But take this as a pill, believe in yourself!
Believe in your craft, and what God has deposited in you. The output might be ugly, but you have to believe that you can still do it.
Failure is inevitable but excusable
You can fail in your craft, business and career but that is not the end of it. Failure is inevitable in the journey of life. It is possible to produce "ugly carrots'' but don't stop there! Don't wrap up your visions and dreams because you have failed. Failure is excusable. You can get out of it and cross into the border of success.
How?
You don't have to discard your failures, instead, refine them!
It is possible that the same article or project you wrote that was rejected can still be the one to land you that contract. It is possible that that rejected manuscript can still become a best-selling book. Your failed business idea can still make you a multimillionaire. The degree you failed to badge in school may still make you the best graduating student.
You don't necessarily have to discard your failures, you can refine them. You can give breath to them again. You can restrategize and refine your ideas once more.
Over time, I have observed that 98 percent of failures are big potential successes. If you check the account of many inventors, pioneers and founders in different sectors and spheres, you would discover that many of them failed countless times before they finally succeeded. And the success they had, became a gigantic and record-breaking one.
All they did was to refine their failures and never to discard them to do something else.
Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the light bulb was known to have 1,000 unsuccessful attempts. Imagine failing for over 1000 times!
When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied,
"I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."
He kept refining his failures till he broke into enormous success!
He didn't discard that idea because he had failed a thousand times. He kept at it — he continued to refine the failures till he became one of the greatest inventors of all time.
Perhaps you have discarded the idea you conceived a long time ago because you have failed just once, twice, thrice or more. My word for you today is to go back to the mess and begin to refine it again.
Believe in yourself, and take that project again. Refine that business idea. Rejuvenate that passion and ambition. Refine it once again and don't stop until success breaks out of its chamber!
What if this is why you failed?
What if you failed because you refused to keep on refining your failures till you see success out of their chambers?
If Mike Yurosek had stopped at the ugly carrots, he would have never become the father of the baby carrots.
You only fail when you stop after failing. Refine and refine once again.
"Refine and refine once again" 👌
Thank you sir.
You only fail when you stop after failing.
Inspiring Piece.
Thank you sir