There is no such thing as failure, only less than desirable results. Surely this is a true statement.
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Every adventure or attempt results in something. When you end up with less than desirable results you really end up with the wisdom and knowledge it takes to succeed. Only through failure can you lay a foundation for success.
If You Aren’t Making Mistakes You’re Not Learning
In another post I told about my boss who would fire anyone who wasn’t making mistakes (literally, he’d fire them). He was under the notion that if you weren’t failing then you weren’t doing anything. He wanted people to fail because he knew and understood it was the only way to learn and grow. No matter how badly you screwed up, he was less likely to fire you for failing because he always said, “Why would I fire someone who just made a $100,000 mistake? Now that they’ve made that mistake it’s unlikely they will make it again. If I hire someone new, they haven’t made that mistake and I could be out another $100,000.”
What he said then still resonates with me today. Only through failures or less than desirable results can you truly obtain a greater understanding of things. It is through my own personal failures that I became what I am today. You have to hold the attitude that the worst thing that can happen is you don’t get the results you want and then you can take that lesson and try again until you get it. If you don’t make the attempt, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.
Don’t Regret Things You Didn’t Do
On your way out you’ll only regret the things you didn’t do. You’ll never regret the things you did. You’ll near hear someone say “oh man, I wish I didn’t invest in that house 30 years ago.” Instead, you’ll hear them say, “I wish I would have….”
When Thomas Edison was asked how he dealt with failure he responded with “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” in response to his invention of the light bulb. 10,000 ways! At any point and time he could have given up and I’d be writing this blog with a candle next to me, dipping my pen into an ink well, and writing it on birch tree bark. History is filled with overwhelming evidence of people failing and failing over and over again. If at any point any of them had given up, the world would be a completely different place than it is today.
Fear of Failure
What are you afraid of?
Is someone going to make fun of you? So what? Do you think you’ll do poorly? So what? Will you be embarrassed? So what, you’ll get over it. Really, at the end of the day, what’s your excuse for not trying to do something you’ve always wanted to try?
Just Do It
You’ll find that when you go ahead and do it that it wasn’t as bad as you thought. You’ll find that the experience alone was worthwhile, and the next time you go to do the same thing, you’ll be that much better. Hell, what if you do really good and succeed? You’ll never know unless you try.
There’s no point in fearing failure. Without trying, you cannot grow and you cannot succeed. Not a single person on earth flawlessly succeeds all the way to riches, fame, and success. There are blunders, oftentimes serious blunders, that set people back. But when you go backwards, you have an advantage because you know the path to go forward again. You’ll find each time you go backwards from failure, you can get back to where you started faster and faster each time and pushing forward passed that point with renewed energy.
Donald Trump Failed Bad
Donald Trump lost all of his money in a bankruptcy. But he knew how to get back, and he got back fast. Within a few years he was a millionaire again. He didn’t blame circumstance. He was confident and believed in himself. He knew where he was going and that’s where he went, right back to the top.
Michael Jordan
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” ~ Michael Jordan
Baseball Hall of Fame
Think about it like this. To get into the baseball hall of fame you only need a .300 batting average. That means 7 out of 10 times you fail, but you’re in the hall of fame, surely that means you’ve been successful even though you’ve failed more than not right?
Business Failures
It is said that 9 out of every 10 businesses fail, and of the 1 of 10 that succeeds 9 of 10 of those fail in the first 5 years. So what does that mean?
To me it means you only have to try 10 times to make a successful business. You see, a lot of people look at things in the opposite way they should be if they want to succeed. Most people would look at that statistic and say “What’s the use in trying I’ll only fail.” And they are absolutely right! They probably will fail! The best thing to do is start getting those failures out of the way and get those 10 tries in. Chances are in your favor that if you start 10 businesses one will succeed. The statistic tells you what you have to do to succeed. Remember this important point.
“Failure shows you the path to success.”
“Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. ~ Jim Rohn
Circumstance
A lot of people blame their failing miserable lives on circumstances. Run this one through your mind a bit and think about it.
“Circumstances do not make the man, they reveal him”
This might be hard to grasp at first, but seriously think about it.
Circumstances reveal your philosophy on life, your beliefs and attitude, all the things that determine whether or not you will get everything you want out of life. Don’t you find it ironic that a poor minded unhappy person will blame poor circumstances, yet a happy successful person will also credit those same “poor” circumstances with their success and happiness?
Everyone has circumstances and responsibilities to deal with. Some things you cannot change, but one thing you can change is yourself. There are people around you in more terrible circumstances than yours becoming wealthy, happy, and successful everyday.
The only difference between you and them is your philosophy, your attitude, and beliefs. The only difference is how you envision yourself and what you want to achieve. Once you set your mind on where you want to end up, it is all about impossible for any circumstance to stop you.
You Attract What You Think About
What you think about and look for you get more of. This is a true in all aspects of life. If you only care about bad news that’s what you focus on and all that seems to come your way. When you focus on bad circumstances you get bad circumstances.
If you just bought a Prius hybrid, you’ll start to notice other Prius hybrids on the road, and you’ll begin to think everyone has one, but before you bought it, you never noticed them. What is in your mind is what you see.
If you see yourself being successful, then you’ll be successful. If you picture yourself happy, you’ll be happy. If you think about good news, you’ll get good news. It’s a law of attraction. What you think about you become. What you think about you get more of.
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