Don't Fear Failure

One of the reasons so many people don't become entrepreneurs is because they're afraid of failing. They're afraid of making mistakes. They're afraid of losing money. But if people can't overcome these psychological fears, they'd be better off keeping their day jobs.

In the early 1980s, when my first major business failed, I thought I was the stupidest person in the world. Being flat broke and getting calls from creditors made me wish I had never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I even wanted my old job back.

But instead of condemning me for failing, my rich dad gave me one of life's most important lessons: "You're fortunate to have failed. You now have the opportunity to learn how to turn bad luck into good luck. If you can do that, you'll have a life of more and more good luck."

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Here are three key points for turning bad luck into good luck:

1. Don't blame. When my rich dad asked me what went wrong, the first thing I did was blame my partners and the economy. He immediately said, "Never blame anyone for your failures."

   "But it was their fault," I replied. 

   Shaking his head, my rich dad said, "If you blame someone else, you'll never learn from your mistake. If you blame, you give your power away." Remember, there are no victims--only volunteers. And you volunteered to become an entrepreneur.

2. Meet new partners. My rich dad said, "In every bad deal, I have always met good people. Some became new partners." Still hating two of my partners, it was hard for me to understand this statement, yet I took my rich dad's advice and began sifting through the wreckage.
   
   Today, one of my best friends came from that business fiasco. In the ruins of other business failures, I met my current partner in real estate and another partner in my franchise business. If not for the failures, I wouldn't have met those fellow entrepreneurs and gone on to make millions of dollars with them.

3. Study your mistakes. "Mistakes are priceless," my rich dad told me. "Study them, learn and profit from them."
   
   Again, this lesson was hard to hear. Being angry and broke, I wanted to run from my mistakes. But rather than run from my failure, I went back to my factory, studied my mistakes and resurrected the business.
   
   This is how I turn bad luck into good luck. Remember, making mistakes and becoming smarter is the job of an entrepreneur; not making mistakes is the job of an employee.

Robert Kiyosaki (richdad.com), author of the Rich Dad series of books, is an investor, entrepreneur and educator whose perspectives have changed the way people think about money and investing.