Growing up in Australia as a child of Korean immigrant parents is no easy feat. Especially when those parents choose to run a tutoring centre as their own business, when you're just 5 years old.
At that tender age, I was put into multiple tutoring classes (which did help me in school, but I digress), and I carried with me a mountain of pressure to succeed because everyone, including tutors, parents, and students, knew me as the "son of the owner."
This meant that I would have to outperform and outshine my classmates in order to maintain a successful image for the centre and receive any validation from my parents. If the son of the owner couldn't do well, how could parents trust the tutoring centre to teach their kids well too? This pressure turned me into a perfectionist overachiever, and the idea of "failure" was so overwhelmingly daunting that I did everything in my power to avoid it.
This same mentality I carried forwards for the next decade or so of my life; scared to take action to pursue my dreams and scared to take the leap of faith and go all in because all my mind could think of was the shame and ridicule failure would bring me (when in fact it wasn't even true).
Looking back at that mentality now, while it was specifically deep rooted for me because of my environment, it's not just something that I carried with me; it's something that we all carry with us, no matter the race or the place, because society has given "failure" such a harsh emotional connotation.
But what if failure IS success?
What if we've all been taught the wrong thing?
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If I told you that you were 100 failures away from guaranteed success, wouldn't you be excited to fail? If I said that every failure is like learning a cheat code to success, wouldn't you do everything in your power to obtain more of them?
"Failure is the mother of all success" is an ancient Chinese proverb, and a great summary of the reality of the world. If you think about the greatest innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders of our time, they have all experienced numerous failures before achieving success. Thomas Edison, for example, famously failed thousands of times before inventing the light bulb. J.K. Rowling faced multiple rejections from publishers before Harry Potter became a worldwide phenomenon. These individuals embraced failure as an essential part of their journey, and it is precisely this mindset that allowed them to persevere and ultimately succeed.
As a society, we need to reframe our perception of failure. Instead of treating it as a devastating blow or a sign of weakness, we should view it as an opportunity for growth, learning, and self-improvement. By normalising failure and understanding that it is an inevitable part of the process, we can foster resilience, creativity, and adaptability in ourselves and others.
My journey as a child of Korean immigrant parents, immersed in the high-pressure environment of a tutoring centre, forced me to confront my own relationship with failure. As I grew older and began to acknowledge the value of failure, I started to take more risks and pursue my dreams with less fear.
Every new business I started taught me something new. First, it was how to build a product; next, it was how to build a brand; next, it was how to build a marketing engine; and next, it was how to sell and deliver great customer service. Each time I failed, I identified what was missing and added it to the next venture, which bore more fruits each time. My last business made $20,000 in its first month of operation because all my past failures became lessons that I applied to reach success. I realised that the only true failure is not trying at all, and that every setback is simply a stepping stone towards success.
So if you're waiting, overanalyzing, or scared to pursue your dreams, remember that the key to success lies not in avoiding failure, but in embracing it as an essential part of our journey. If we change our mindset and treat failure as a valuable learning experience, we can unlock our full potential and achieve greatness. It is time for society to redefine the concept of failure and celebrate the resilience and growth that it fosters. So, let's not shy away from failure; instead, let's welcome it with open arms, knowing that it is the path to a brighter and more successful future.
