"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
John F Kennedy.
We can explore the nature of failure on one's path. And learn to appreciate the age old quote: "Fall down seven times, get up eight."
Success is series of failures, but nobody wants to believe this, experience this, or talk about this.
We seem to think if we ignore this "fact of life" it will somehow go away, or "it just won't happen to me." I listen very carefully to successful people as they talk about their path to success and I haven't heard a single person say they had no challenges or failures. However, almost all of them barely mention these experiences in their lives and very quickly gloss over their "challenges, frustrations, and failures" on their path and go right to the "good part" of success they are now experiencing. Why do they do this? Because no one wants to focus on and hear about the failures - people just want to hear about the success. No one wants to hear that they themselves may have to "fail" before they experience success. Do you? I don't. But I'd rather hear the truth than be spoon-fed some fantasy. Because of the unpopularity of "challenge, frustration, and failure," these critical success elements get minimized and underappreciated as the MAJOR, CRITICAL and KEY stepping stones to success they actually are!
Due to our schooling and years of indoctrination we have an incredibly low tolerance for mistakes. As school children we learned that mistakes are bad and that getting a 100% on the test is good. If a context wherein mistakes are viewed as opportunities for learning is missing, they are represented as failures. Our education system taught us to memorize and then regurgitate facts onto a test. Perhaps as a measurement of our ability to memorize, this would not be so bad. But in the ever-changing real world, where memorized facts rarely produce the result you are looking for, this type of learning is not very effective. The REAL process of accomplishing anything will involve trial and error, with mistakes along the path being very common.The classic example of this is inventor Thomas Edison. Depending on which source you look at, it took him somewhere around 1,000 attempts to finally invent the light bulb (which remains relatively unchanged to this day!). When asked by a reporter why he failed so many times, he replied (and I'm paraphrasing here) "I never failed, each trial taught me how not to make it and brought me one step closer to success." Brilliant!
I discovered another great example of this in the bonus materials on the DVD of the Academy Award winning movie "A Beautiful Mind." In the segment on "The Making of the Movie, A Beautiful Mind" the writer discusses how he literally re-wrote a scene 75 times! Each re-write had fewer and fewer words, until he finally nailed it. The scene, only seconds in duration, moves me to tears each time I watch it, but you would never know the extraordinary amount of trial and error that went on behind its creation.
Now look at these two examples. Notice these are both successful people; one as an inventor the other as a writer. They know what they are doing! They are experienced in the fields they are working in, and their path to success was laden with "failed" attempts. Consider that when creating or engaging something new, THIS is the mark of a true professional. He or she "learns from each attempt" (what is and is not working) and subsequently makes adjustments and tries again. In this context you are not experiencing failure, rather you are experiencing a learning process.
John F Kennedy.
We can explore the nature of failure on one's path. And learn to appreciate the age old quote: "Fall down seven times, get up eight."
Success is series of failures, but nobody wants to believe this, experience this, or talk about this.
We seem to think if we ignore this "fact of life" it will somehow go away, or "it just won't happen to me." I listen very carefully to successful people as they talk about their path to success and I haven't heard a single person say they had no challenges or failures. However, almost all of them barely mention these experiences in their lives and very quickly gloss over their "challenges, frustrations, and failures" on their path and go right to the "good part" of success they are now experiencing. Why do they do this? Because no one wants to focus on and hear about the failures - people just want to hear about the success. No one wants to hear that they themselves may have to "fail" before they experience success. Do you? I don't. But I'd rather hear the truth than be spoon-fed some fantasy. Because of the unpopularity of "challenge, frustration, and failure," these critical success elements get minimized and underappreciated as the MAJOR, CRITICAL and KEY stepping stones to success they actually are!
Due to our schooling and years of indoctrination we have an incredibly low tolerance for mistakes. As school children we learned that mistakes are bad and that getting a 100% on the test is good. If a context wherein mistakes are viewed as opportunities for learning is missing, they are represented as failures. Our education system taught us to memorize and then regurgitate facts onto a test. Perhaps as a measurement of our ability to memorize, this would not be so bad. But in the ever-changing real world, where memorized facts rarely produce the result you are looking for, this type of learning is not very effective. The REAL process of accomplishing anything will involve trial and error, with mistakes along the path being very common.The classic example of this is inventor Thomas Edison. Depending on which source you look at, it took him somewhere around 1,000 attempts to finally invent the light bulb (which remains relatively unchanged to this day!). When asked by a reporter why he failed so many times, he replied (and I'm paraphrasing here) "I never failed, each trial taught me how not to make it and brought me one step closer to success." Brilliant!
I discovered another great example of this in the bonus materials on the DVD of the Academy Award winning movie "A Beautiful Mind." In the segment on "The Making of the Movie, A Beautiful Mind" the writer discusses how he literally re-wrote a scene 75 times! Each re-write had fewer and fewer words, until he finally nailed it. The scene, only seconds in duration, moves me to tears each time I watch it, but you would never know the extraordinary amount of trial and error that went on behind its creation.
Now look at these two examples. Notice these are both successful people; one as an inventor the other as a writer. They know what they are doing! They are experienced in the fields they are working in, and their path to success was laden with "failed" attempts. Consider that when creating or engaging something new, THIS is the mark of a true professional. He or she "learns from each attempt" (what is and is not working) and subsequently makes adjustments and tries again. In this context you are not experiencing failure, rather you are experiencing a learning process.
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