I like to take a cue from the following statement; “In most every endeavor overcoming slings, arrows, setbacks, and rejection is a crucial element for ultimte success” by Alex Dalenberg. It has been a common but profound statement that there is no royal road to success. Were it to be so, the earth won’t have had series of flat, undulating plains, plateaux, mountains, deep gorges and precipices.

The point I am making bothers on success and failure which are a common phenomenon in the life of every individual. However, I have to state clearly that failure as one of man’s many endeavors, does not mean that one is a total failure in life. Every person expects to be seen as successful and not a failure.

In any event, life is a journey through bearable and unbearable terrains that calls for the courage that one puts into life come rain, come sunshine. Almost all successful individuals have experienced failure many a-time in the past. A fact of life that is undeniable is that failures are not supposed to be the end of the road, rather they are expected to be sure stepping stone to success that can lead to an enduring legacy to unborn generations.

My half sister once failed a promotional examination. It was extremely painful to her. It turned out to be a spontaneous wake-up call to put in more effort at her studies resulting in taking the first position throughout her remaining years in school. That failure birthed success that followed her into adult life.

Oprah Winfrey started life in a hard way suggestive of failure in life. She braced up herself in spite of all odds to become what she became; a TV star for decades, now one of the richest women of note, as well as a philanthropist. Her early threatening failure turned into a situation of “Rag to Riches”. She graduated from the school of failure to become a celebrated success.

In business, Henry Ford, American Industrialist (1863-1947) earlier in life, tasted the bitter pills of failure before his business boomed in the Motor manufacturing industry. Ford Foudation is the legacy left behind as testimony for his enduring legacy.

Abraham Lincoln, an American Lawyer and statesman (1809-1865) experienced a chain of failures in politics, but with rugged determination and courage he got to know the possible causes of his seemingly unending failures. He has an attitude which I love to describe as that of ” when the going is tough , the tough gets going”. He became the 16th President of the United States from 1861- 1865. His eventual success included wartime leadership, unifier of the Union and abolition of slavery. Till today history has projected him as the greatest in American Presidents in history across the aisle.