Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die

Today a close friend of mine had to tell those around him about the business he was forced to close after turning over millions of dollars in a little under two years. The company, which had achieved great success in a short time, was full of promise; but then things did not go the way he wanted. This was not, in fact, the first company he had closed. His career holds as many stories of success as it does of failure, and I believe that with the lessons he has drawn from them he will be far more successful still.

“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die,” goes a Texan/Mexican saying. To reach an earthly heaven, too, you first have to know how to lose.

Those who are afraid of losing are the ones who lose. We are the children of a nation that lost on every front and still defied the whole world. If we had given up and accepted defeat at the first losses on the battlefield – and note, not one but many defeats – who knows what state we would be in as a country?

I have run companies into the ground time and again, had jobs cancelled time and again, and fallen into debt. But with determination and hard work I came to have a company that works with the most respected firms in our country.

Let me share a story that appeared in Hürriyet only today: “Hakan Plastik, which Ali Karadeniz of Trabzon founded in Bayrampaşa by selling his only coach, which ran between Trabzon and Istanbul, was burnt to ashes in a fire in 2001. Undaunted, Ali Karadeniz built a new factory, and his firm grew even faster, reaching a turnover of 117 million lira in 2008. Hakan Plastik now exports to 60 countries under the management of Zafer Karadeniz.” (Click for the story)

Michael Jordan, regarded by the authorities as the greatest basketball player of all time, has a famous story. He says: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Nobody who is afraid of losing can succeed. Failure brings success when it is seen as a stage on the way to success.