The Better Mindset than "Success is a lousy teacher. Failure teaches you more."

Learn the better mindset to handle both successes and failures.

Do a search on "Success is a lousy teacher. Failure teaches you more." can you will find a story about an Indian boy who made it to the best university in India, came to the US for further study in MBA, had a good job, bought houses, married a lovely wife, have children, but in a change of event, lost his job and unable to find new jobs, they all committed suicides. Why? 

The advice is: Programmed for success but he was not trained for handling failures.

 "Success is a lousy teacher. Failure teaches you more." 

So parents are encouraged to teach their children how to handle failures.

This is typical thinking of the "Ether-Or" mindset. If success could lead to suicides, then we need to study and learn from failures. We shifted from pursuing success to learning from failures. But should not we study success to learn from success so that we can repeat the success? Perhaps the key reason for the sad ending is that he did not study his success so that he could not repeat his earlier success. It is not just intelligence but also of the toughness of the heart. 

So we learn two things:

1. study both success and failures to learn from them so as to repeat the success and learn not to fail,

2. It is both, of the intelligence of the mind, and also of the toughness or resilience of the heart.

A Better mindset is the Ancient Chinese Philosophical Mindset of Yin-Yang. It gives point 3 and 4 for our learning.

3. For every crisis or failure, there lies within, the opportunity, AND

4. for every opportunity or success, there lies within the risks of failure.

So in failure, study to find the opportunity to transform and gain success.

In success, study the potential dangers lurking around so as to prevent the failures.

We can see why is success a lousy teacher?
Because it blinds us to the risks. It bloated our ego and we think we could do no wrong. 
How can we prevent success from growing our ego and pride?

The Ancient Chinese Wisdom i-Ching (The Book of Change) Hexagram#1 Heaven, teaches us to surround ourselves with a group of friends to keep us in check. See Learning from "I-Ching" Part 04 1-乾 Heaven - Creative Force.  It documents the stages of growth for a person or any innovation.
I reproduce the Quick Summary below:

A Quick summary: Be proactive. Be the innovator and the initiator – start a good project. Take the steps to make a better world.

1. Hidden Dragon: don’t show off – get ready – prepared well. Do it when time and opportunity are right.
2. Appearing Dragon: excel in your work and get mentors
3. Running Dragon: be diligent and watchful at the same time
4. Leaping Dragon: take a leap to higher ground
5. Flying Dragon: soar higher with a network of influential people to correct and guide you
6. Retiring Dragon: prepare for retirement or change of career
7. Parenting Dragon: self-management of virtuous leaders – developing others.

As a rookie (stage 2) we get mentors to help us to develop ourselves to grow quickly. As a successful person (Stage 5 Flying Dragon), our attitudes should be like a rookie, humble, and learning from others around us. This will prevent our success to become a failure.

So, about success and failures, please remember the four points written:

1. study both success and failures to learn from them so as to repeat the success and learn not to fail,

2. It is both, of the intelligence of the mind, and also of the toughness or resilience of the heart.

3. For every crisis or failure, there lies within, the opportunity, (find the opportunity to success) AND

4. for every opportunity or success, there lies within the risks of failure. (please be humble and learn from others)

Lim Liat(c) 17 Jan 2022