Why Failure Is Your Greatest Business Asset: Rethink Setbacks As Essential Building Blocks For Long-Term Success

As an entrepreneur or business leader, you’re often told to avoid failure, to chase success as if missteps are signs of weakness. But the truth is just the opposite. Failure isn’t just part of the journey—it is the journey. It’s consistent, inevitable, and deeply necessary for growth. You can’t build resilience, innovation, or meaningful success without it. The question is not whether you’ll fail, but how you’ll respond when you do. Will you retreat—or embrace it and learn?  

You’ve Been Failing Forward All Along 

All your life, failure has been your most consistent teacher. Anything you’ve ever achieved was built from previous setbacks. Think about it: even as a baby, you failed your way forward. You didn’t go from sitting to walking in one step. You wiggled, balanced, shuffled, scooted, crawled—and eventually stood and walked. Every one of those earlier attempts was technically a failure. But those “failures” were essential to your progress.  

That same process continues throughout your life and career. You experiment, adjust, and try again. When your efforts do not deliver the outcome you want, you probably consider them failures.  But failures are not a bad thing. It’s how progress is made.  

Why Failure Still Stings 

If failure is so universal and necessary, why does it still hurt? Because throughout your life, you’ve been taught to avoid it. Society shuns failure—especially as you move from childhood to adulthood. Over time, you internalize the message that success means perfection.  

In fact, it’s been noted that many successful people don’t consider themselves successful. It’s not that they actually failed, but  they focused on their imperfections and let that perception define their entire self-worth. You may be doing the same thing—letting the sting of failure obscure the full picture of your growth.  

Reframe Failure Using the Pareto Principle 

One way to shift your mindset is through the Pareto Principle, which states that 80 percent of your outcomes come from 20 percent of your efforts. If you run a business, you may find that most of your revenue comes from a small group of clients. In my real estate business, 80 percent of my earnings come from just 20 percent of my properties. 

This rule holds true across industries—from startups to sports teams. A few key players often generate the majority of the wins.  

But take a step back and look at the rest of the picture. If 80 percent of your effort produces little visible return, you could easily interpret that as failure. That’s a dangerous misreading. Without that 80 percent of groundwork—experimentation, trial-and-error, long days of strategic planning—the high-performing 20 percent wouldn’t exist.  

The Work That Doesn’t “Work” Is Still Vital 

A common recommendation is to double down on your 20 percent and eliminate the rest. While that may be efficient in theory, it ignores the role that learning and iteration play in long-term success.  

Instead, embrace the 80 percent that doesn’t yield immediate results. It’s where you learn. It’s where you build stamina and systems. That 80 percent might not make headlines or move revenue right away, but it creates the conditions for the 20 percent to thrive.  

Don’t Trust the Highlight Reels 

In today’s media-saturated world, it’s easy to believe others are winning nonstop. You see entrepreneurs or celebrities showing only their most polished, successful moments. But you’re seeing the final product, not the grueling process behind it.  

Consider Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’s widely successful, charming, and incredibly productive. But what you don’t always see are the hours he spends in the gym, the strict diet he follows, or the enormous effort behind the scenes. He eats two-and-a-half pounds of cod a day for protein and trains for four hours. That’s not glamorous—but it’s necessary. He gets paid for acting, not exercising or meal prepping. Yet without that 80 percent of prep, the 20 percent of performance wouldn’t be possible.  

Apply the 80/20 Rule to Your Own Journey 

Instead of measuring success by visible wins alone, recognize how much foundational work is required. When you feel discouraged that your efforts aren’t paying off, remember the 80 percent. You’re not failing—you’re building capacity.  

Success is built on countless actions that go unnoticed by the outside world. And often, they don’t yield instant results. But they are essential.  

The Real Mark of Greatness 

The difference between someone who’s merely successful and someone who’s truly great isn’t the absence of difficulty. It’s the ability to recover from setbacks—sometimes enormous ones—and keep going.  

Great companies fall and rebuild. Great leaders make mistakes and return stronger. As long as you’re still in the game, you have the chance to move forward. And forward motion—no matter how small—is momentum. Failure only wins if you stop trying. 

Written by Adam Haston.
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