Posted April 8, 2013

Condensed from The Forum, November 1937

William Moulton Marston

If there is any single factor that makes for success in living, it is the ability to draw dividends from defeat. Every success I know has been reached because the person was able to analyze defeat and actually profit by it in his next undertaking. If you confuse defeat with failure, then you are doomed indeed to failure. For it isn’t defeat that makes you fail; it is your own refusal to see in defeat the guide and incentive to success.

Defeats are nothing to be ashamed of. They are routine incidents in the life of every man who achieves. But defeat is a dead loss unless you face it without humiliation, analyze it and learn why you failed to make your objective. If you look upon defeat in the light of a friendly tipster, it ceases to be mortifying, and the task of analyzing its causes within yourself becomes both interesting and profitable.

Defeat, in other words, can help to cure its own cause. Hiram Kimball, a middle–aged New Englander, inherited his uncle’s bookshop, which had been modestly successful for more than 20 years. Fired with ambition to modernize and expand the business, Hiram leased a new corner, put in a larger stock, advertised extensively and doubled his overhead. A couple years later he was bankrupt.

Defeat left Kimball with the firsthand experience he had previously lacked and a lot of secondhand books the receivers had been unable to sell. He put defeat to work. He built a shack with his own hands on a much-traveled highway and spread his old books all over the place invitingly. Results came with surprising promptness. Second-hand books, as Hiram well knew, are gateways to mental adventure which few passers-by can refrain from exploring. In three seasons he made twice the money he had lost. His defeat equipped him for a satisfying and original success.

Not only does defeat prepare us for success, but nothing can arouse within us such a compelling desire to succeed.  The desire to dominate is the first of four primary emotions to appear. If you let a baby grasp a rod and try to pull it away he will cling more and more tightly until his whole weight is suspended. It is this same reaction which should give you new and greater strength every time you are defeated. If you exploit the power which defeat gives, you can accomplish with it far more than you are capable of when all is serene.

John Paul Jones stood on the shot-torn deck of the Bon Homme Richard. The Richard began to sink. John Paul was a beaten man. But when the British commander asked Jones to surrender, a fighting fury of defeat suddenly boiled over in the American. Said he, “I have not yet begun to fight.” He rammed his waterlogged ship against the nearest British vessel, grappled and boarded her, and in no time at all the fight was over. From the bitterness of defeat, John Paul Jones drew a conqueror’s spirit which assured him victory.

Heroes are often made in moments of defeat. Theodore Roosevelt, who insisted on finishing a political speech after a would-be assassin had pumped a revolver bullet into his breast, got that way by virtue of a good licking he took as a terrified boy. T. R. made up his exceedingly dominant mind that he would learn to box, to shoot, to play tough games with the best of them and to give more than he received. He carried out his resolution because he had the impetus of defeat behind him.

I know a man who suffered very unpleasant consequences from a love affair. The experience conditioned his whole life; it induced in him a fear of women which expresses itself in running away or turning in upon himself when they are present. To everybody but himself this fellow’s phobia is amusing. But for him it is real and painful. Instead of facing his love defeat, analyzing its real causes and taking profits in future relationships, he is beaten by one reverse.

It will pay you to search your own behavior for stupidities of this type and get rid of them. There are people who have lost their jobs who are afraid to ask for work; people rebuffed when they sought a raise who are afraid now to speak to the boss; mothers whose children almost drowned who will not permit them to go into the water to learn to swim. Any fear of defeat which you do not possess will impress you as ridiculous. But the chances are you have a pet defeat of your own from which you run away with equal unreasonableness.

People try in many ways to disguise the fact that they are running away. The simplest trick is to tell yourself that you are not defeated, that you are making satisfactory progress when, as a matter of fact, you are completely blocked. I know a man who tries to keep his self-confidence by continually telling himself and his friends that he is about to get a promotion. His underconsciousness [sic] isn’t fooled; he knows well enough that he long ago reached the limit of advancement in his present position. Actually he is losing confidence in himself with every pathetic attempt to cover up defeat.

Another trick some people play on themselves is to “forget” their defeats. There might be merit in this method if it were psychologically possible to amputate unpleasant memories. But it isn’t. All you can do is repress them. Experiences thus buried throw off emotional poisons, fears, depressions, hatreds, antisocial feelings. They cause not only mental disorders but physical sicknesses. And instead of bolstering up your self-confidence, such a complex will in time destroy it completely.

If the shock of an imagined failure has numbed you for the moment so that you cannot think clearly, go out on a party, chop down a tree, punch a heavy bag; do something violent and unusual. Then sleep for a while. When you wake up you will find that your brain is thinking hard and fast. Now is the time to spot your profits and make your comeback. Note particularly the false values, the silly, futile desires which this temporary setback has stripped away. Then set your fundamental desires to work, free from the encumbrances which defeat has revealed to you. For this profit alone, defeat is worthwhile. Put all your resentment into a thrust toward your goal. If defeat releases inside of you an unbeatable dominance, nothing can keep you from success on your next attempt.

Happiness Today

Marston's words resonate today with David Arquette who recently had a tattoo of the panel put on his chest.

View the interview here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgz4_yqRG9I