If you’re like me, you learn best by trying things out yourself. You can have someone show and tell you exactly what you need to do in order to accomplish a goal, but until you try it yourself very little is learned. By getting hands on, your mind is able able to internalize the process and put the pieces together.

Looking back at my life, some of the things I excelled most at were those things that required me to fail and fail again, until I eventually figured out the perfect equation. For instance, one of the first jobs I had right out of college was a high-pressure sales position. The objective was to sell to people completely cold. They had no warning that I was going to show up at their door, they had no obligation to talk to me, and they were in no way pre-qualified. Yet I had to make them buy from me.

I was given no training, no direction, just a job and a box of business cards. From there it was up to me to bring in some sales and earn a paycheck.This, as you can imagine, was not an easy task. But there were some very successful people on my team, which lead me to believe that it was possible.

So I set my expectations high and set out to make some money…

But I failed, and I failed a lot. Time after time I tried to make a sale, each time adjusting my pitch just a bit until I eventually got it right. After what was probably more than 10,000 attempts, I got it down to a science.

Before my prospect even opened their mouth I knew what they were going to say, I knew how I was going to respond, and I knew how they would react. I wasn’t selling, I was manipulating human behavior by becoming a master of persuasion.

By failing thousands of times in the past, I studied what didn’t work to allow me to come up with a a winning formula.

Eventually I became one of the company’s top earners, at which point I no longer felt challenged by the job and left to find something else to keep my interests.

The point is that success does not come on the first attempt. If it does, it’s probably luck and will not have sustainable results. Having the endurance to realize that failing is not actually failing at all, but coming one step closer to your goal is the key to success. Those who realize this and have the tenacity to keep trying will achieve incredible results.