Bernard Marr
Best-selling business author and enterprise performance expert

Successful people often paint a picture of the perfect ascent to success. In fact, some of the most successful entrepreneur in the world have failed. Many have failed numerous times but they have never given up.

Let’s look at some examples:

Henry Ford – the pioneer of modern business entrepreneurs and the founder of the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford failed a number of times on this route to success. His first venture dissolved in a year and a half because the stockholder lost confidence in him. He then was able to gather capital to start again but a year later the financiers forced him out of the company again.

Walt Disney – Before the great success Walt Disney came a number of failures. Walt was fired from an early job at the Kansas City Star Newspaper because he was not creative enough. Then he started his first company called Laugh-O-Gram. It would produce cartoons and short advertising films. One year the company went bankrup and Walt didn’t give up.

Richard Branson – He dropped out of school when he was 16, he then started a student magazine but that didn’t do as well as he hoped. Richard then setup a mail-order record business which did so well that he opened his own record shop called Virgin.

J.K. Rowling – Like so many writers J.K. Rowling received rejections from publishers. At the same time she was a divorced single mum on welfare and that made her story even more inspiring.

Bill Gates – Before Microsoft, Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Paul Gilbert co-founded a business to read data from roadway traffic counters and create automated report on traffic flows. But without a good business that left the company with few customers. The company ran up lossess between 1974 and 1980 before it was closed.

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Ryan Holmes

CEO at HootSuite

1. Be loyal. In business, loyalty can be a huge asset. I’ve learned that surrounding yourself with a loyal team is one of the key factors to success. BUT, this should all be taken with a grain of salt. Blind loyalty helps nobody. If I know that a team member is—after a certain fair amount of time—not doing the job they were hired to do, or if a business ally is starting to look out for only his best interests, I will make the tough call to part ways.

2. Trust your instincts. In business, it can be very important to trust your instincts. Faulty data, miscommunications, even people with interests that aren’t aligned with your own can get in the way of making the best decisions. It can also waste a lot of time to be constantly second-guessing things.

3. Know what you want and be super persistent about getting it. Persistence pays, and nobody knows that better than a dog. I’ve often been told that I am also very persistent when it comes to work. Indeed, I had to be when it came to finding the funding that launched my company. But many of my successful colleagues share the same trait. It’s very, very important in business to not give up. Legend has it that Walt Disney was turned down by 302 banks before he got the funding he needed to open Disneyland.

4. If you’re going to do it, do it 110%. Once you’ve decided to do something (after assessing the potential risks and benefits), why not reach for the stars with it? I’ve found that in business, if you strive to hit a place one or two steps beyond the foreseeable goal, the realm of possibilities expands. It’s how I plan things and I like to encourage my employees do the same: push past boundaries and pursue opportunities that they might have initially thought impossible or too big.

5. Unplug. Go outside and play. I answer hundreds of emails a day, but I’m also just as active in things like yoga, cycling and rock climbing. I love the outdoors. I make an effort to ensure that I’m not stuck in an office staring at a screen for hours (or days) on end. With technology penetrating our lives and jobs more than ever, it’s easy to be online and working 24-7. But it’s very important to regularly de-stress and refresh your mind and body. In fact, there’s a lot of research that suggests exercise can even improve productivity.