Sometimes you can get better goal achievement lessons from successful people’s failures than you can from their successes. I got such good feedback from my other article about Simon Cowell’s mistake, that I thought I’d discuss what we can learn from another one he made..!
In the previous article I talked about how he had turned down the chance to be a judge on the Popstars, which was the show that relaunched the talent show, giving it a reality TV twist.
Cowell didn’t think the reality idea was a good one, so turned it down after repeated requests. The show then went on to be huge success, and he was livid!
Instead of sulking though, he decided to do something, to learn from his mistake, and he came up with Pop Idol.
That took off, and he then expanded the idea into The X Factor, which took the concept to a bigger level. At this point the had established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment industry – he could deliver huge ratings, huge hits, huge profits.
Here’s where his second mistake came along…
He was wondering what else to do with the talent format, and decided to go for the variety angle, allowing any kind of act to enter, with no age restrictions. He called it Britain’s Got Talent.
Hang on, I hear you cry, that wasn’t a mistake! It brought us Susan Boyle and is franchised around the world! Ah yes, it is now, but when he put together the first pilot show, it bombed. The networks thought it looked flat and dated, and no-one signed the show up.
So what did Cowell do? Did he give up, did he sulk? Well, we can look to his previous reaction to mistakes, to assume that he didn’t. He took the show to the US, made it bigger, with the huge red buttons, and the huge red crosses, and the show took off over there – only then did he come back and sell it back in the UK.
Once again he had demonstrated a huge goal achievement lesson, and it’s something successful people do often without realising it – he picked himself up after a setback, looked at the reasons for the setback, changed things and came at it fresh from a new angle.
It’s possible that when he took the show to the US, that it didn’t work there either, but what do you think he would have done? How would he have reacted? Think about that, and then think how he would react in the area of your own specific goal – what setbacks might there be, and what could the alternative reactions be?
Learning from mistakes really can yield some success lesson gems, and that’s certainly the case with another Simon Cowell mistake!
Do you want to learn more about goal achievement, and reacting to setbacks? Then read my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days!’, or grab my free 8 Step Goal Achievement Formula
‘Til Next Time,
Health & happiness,
Gordon
P.S. Don’t forget to let me know what you think!
