What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars
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Why a Book on Losing? Why a Book on Losing?
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Cite
Extract
Books can generally be categorized into one of three groups: education, entertainment, or reference. Education books teach us; entertainment books amuse us; and reference books inform us. This book combines education with entertainment to make it easier to recall the lessons by remembering the story. In that sense, this book is a parable: a simple story illustrating important lessons. From the story of the little boy who cried wolf to the story of the emperor’s new clothes, parables have been used to convey lessons that apply to many aspects of life. Similarly, in this book the story is about a commodities trader, but its lessons apply to stock-market and bond-market investors, as well as all types of business people: entrepreneurs, managers, and CEOs.
The moral of the story you are about to read is: Success can be built upon repeated failures when the failures aren’t taken personally; likewise, failure can be built upon repeated successes when the successes are taken personally. Thomas Edison failed roughly 10,000 times before finding the right filament to make an electric light bulb. The day his Menlo Park laboratory burned to the ground a reporter asked him what he was going to do. Edison responded, “Start rebuilding tomorrow.” In part, Edison succeeded because he didn’t take failures or losses personally. On the other hand, consider Henry Ford, who worked with and greatly admired Edison. Ford started in 1905 with nothing and in fifteen years had built the largest and most profitable manufacturing firm on the planet. Yet a few years later, this seemingly impregnable business empire was in shambles and would go on to lose money almost every year for the next two decades. Ford was known to stick uncompromisingly to his opinions; is it possible his company lost so much money because he took the successes personally and came to think he could do no wrong?
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