Kumar Mangalam Birla’s success mantra: Failure is not fatal, it’s inevitable

Birla says, the key is to not be oblivious to the mistake.

Agencies
We all fail. We all make mistakes. The key is to not be oblivious to the mistake - Birla.
Kumar Mangalam Birla shared with students why they shouldn’t fear failure, and instead learn from it.

Failure is not fatal. It is inevitable, according to industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla. And that was a lesson he shared with the graduating class of a B-school at their convocation.

“If you don’t fail, it perhaps means you aren’t taking enough risks,” Birla said to the youngsters. “However, it is the swiftness with which you react to failure that will determine whether it is a debilitating blow or a sobering lesson.”


JackMa
Before Jack Ma built an empire, he was denied a job in KFC.


He shared the example of Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma, who “failed in his primary examinations, not once but twice... was rejected by Harvard 10 times... was the only one turned away from a job in KFC, out of 24 candidates”. Those were his failures. And the list of his success? It’s short: He created Alibaba.

“We all fail. We all make mistakes. The key is to not be oblivious to the mistake. When you make a mistake, you have three choices: You can be in denial, you can let it cripple you or you can acknowledge the error, take swift corrective action and learn from it,” Birla said.
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