THREE REASONS WHY FAILURE IS GOOD

The best victories are the ones you have to fight for. The ones that push your natural limits and make you search your soul for answers. Most of us avoid the prospect of failure and give up too early, moving onto the promise of an easier path. In fact, failure is a necessary part of being human. 01 Failure is Our Greatest Teacher Consider this. Would you prefer to make the same safe choices over and over again, or embrace the lessons from failure to come out better on the other side? Failure helps us develop a greater understanding of our craft and life itself. 02 Failure Helps Us Reach our Potential Thomas Edison failed nearly 10,000 times to create the lightbulb! Ultimately this led to his success and lit up the entire world. Most of us view failure as the end of the road. In fact, it's  a stepping stone towards reaching our potential.  You just have to keep going.                                                               03                                       Failure Fosters Personal Growth Failure makes us grow and mature as human beings. We reach a deeper understanding of ourselves and others and gain meaning of painful experiences. We start to ask the right questions, 'Could I have done more?' 'Could I have done better?' 'How can I create value.'

 

FAILING FORWARD: SEVEN STORIES OF SUCCESS THROUGH FAILURE BY NICK HORTON

Coach

My friend Maria and I got our degrees at the same time - hers in Engineering, mine in Mathematics. These subjects, in case you aren't aware, are tough! There were classes we really had to struggle with, fight to get through, and survived only by digging our fingers in with everything we had. Along the way, many of the people who started at the same time we did dropped out, changed majors, etc. They quit. Maria and I didn't and we have degrees to show for it.

Maria and I came up with a saying, "We're not quitters, we're failures!" We'd rather fail a class three times and eventually pass it than quit and resign ourselves to the idea that we "just can't get it." That kind of sob-story defeatism has to be expunged from your mind. While there ARE things that you can't do - like flying via pixie dust - most of the things you want in life you CAN have, but only if you treat failure as a part of the learning process. If you see failure as an end, that makes you a quitter.

You can't succeed at anything if you quit. Don't be a quitter, be a failure. 

Fitness goals are interesting in their abstractness, they can be quite oddball (who really NEEDS to squat double bodyweight?), and they can take a very long time and a lot of energy to accomplish. Without a willingness to endure failure you'll never reach your goals.

Here are a few examples of failures that made good to keep you inspired to keep failing and never quit.

1. J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter novels was waitressing and on public assistance when she was writing the first installment of what would become one of the best selling series in history. The book was rejected by a dozen publishers. The only reason it got published at all was because the CEO's eight year old daughter begged him to publish it.

“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.” - J.K. Rowling

Now, if that isn't a great Zen line, I don't know what is!

2. Michael Jordan

It might come as a shock, but the man who became what many would call the best basketball player of all time didn't make his high school basketball team.

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan

3. Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was both hearing impaired and fidgety. He only lasted three months in school where his teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He eventually was home schooled by his mom. In talking about his invention of the light bulb, he said:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that do not work.” - Thomas Edison

4. James Carville

When I was a kid I was obsessed with political campaigns the way other kids were obsessed with sports. During the 1992 Presidential campaign there was no greater superstar-whacko than Clinton's political operative, James Carville. With his shaved bald head, snake-like facial features, and his deep Louisiana accent he seemed like a man out of the Twilight Zone!

He's now considered to be one of the greatest political operatives of a generation. But, before he ended up on that fateful campaign in his early 40's he was dead broke, had won only a handful of elections, and had never even been approved for a credit card. On paper, he looked like a complete failure. By not giving up he ended up in the White House. 

"No one will ever accuse James Carville of taking himself seriously." - James Carville

5. Ludwig van Beethoven

His early skills at music and the violin were decidedly less than impressive. His teachers thought him hopeless. It was his father who saw the potential in him and took over his education. Beethoven slowly lost his hearing throughout his life and yet, four of his greatest works were composed when he was completely deaf.

"Beethoven can write music, thank God, because he can't do anything else!" - Ludwig van Beethoven

6. Christopher Reeve

The man who played Superman becoming a quadriplegic was more than ironic - it was tragic. He never learned to be happy about his situation - who could? But, he did learn to live with it.

“In the morning, I need twenty minutes to cry. To wake up and make that shift, you know, and to just say, 'This really sucks,' to really allow yourself the feeling of loss. It still needs to be acknowledged.” - Christopher Reeve

Then, he'd say, "And now...forward!"

He had to take a moment everyday to acknowledge where he was, what the reality of the situation was. But, he didn't allow that to stop him. He traveled widely doing public speaking on behalf of people with spinal injuries, tirelessly raised money for his own and other foundations, and even became a movie director. He took what he had and tried to help others in the best way he could.

7. Oprah Winfrey

Her childhood was frightful and filled with horrible abuse and abject poverty. But, like most successful people, Oprah doesn't dwell on stuff like that. 

"I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good." - Oprah Winfrey

BONUS:

Oh, what the heck, I'll give you a few more! You can never have enough inspirational stories to keep you going.

Vincent Van Gogh

The man was a manic depressive. He could barely function half the time. He never saw success in his lifetime, but his work is often regarded as the greatest painting ever done by any human on earth. Because of this, his name has become a war cry for artists around the world who have been repeatedly rejected and sidelined.

"Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again." - Vincent van Gogh

Oscar Wilde

Wilde, the British play-write and satirist was gay during a time when being gay could get you prison time. And it did. Unlike our examples above, Wilde started out privileged, with successful parents. He ended up being quite famous in his own life, but he died an early death as a direct result of his imprisonment. What is instructive is that he was willing to lose everything - and did - rather than pretend to be someone that he wasn't. He also never lost his wit.

"Life is too important a thing ever to talk seriously about." - Oscar Wilde

I'll close with another quote by Michael Jordan.

"Some want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen." - Michael Jordan

Now go make something happen.

Adapted from:

https://breakingmuscle.com/sports-psychology/failing-forward-7-stories-of-success-through-failure

NEVER GIVE UP NO MATTER HOW LIFE TREATS YOU

A popular speaker started off a seminar by holding up a $20 bill. A crowd of 200 had gathered to hear him speak. He asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?”
200 hands went up.
He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He crumpled the bill up.
He then asked, “Who still wants it?”
All 200 hands were still raised.
“Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?” Then he dropped the bill on the ground and stomped on it with his shoes.
He picked it up, and showed it to the crowd. The bill was all crumpled and dirty.
“Now who still wants it?”
All the hands still went up.
“My friends, I have just showed you a very important lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, life crumples us and grinds us into the dirt. We make bad decisions or deal with poor circumstances. We feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special – Don’t ever forget it!

INSPIRING STORY OF COLONEL HARTLAND SANDERS, FOUNDER, KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN

Once, there was an older man, who was broke, living in a tiny house and owned a beat up car. He was living off of $99 social security checks. At 65 years of age, he decide things had to change. So he thought about what he had to offer. His friends raved about his chicken recipe. He decided that this was his best shot at making a change.
He left Kentucky and traveled to different states to try to sell his recipe. He told restaurant owners that he had a mouthwatering chicken recipe. He offered the recipe to them for free, just asking for a small percentage on the items sold. Sounds like a good deal, right?
Unfortunately, not to most of the restaurants. He heard NO over 1000 times. Even after all of those rejections, he didn’t give up. He believed his chicken recipe was something special. He got rejected 1009 times before he heard his first yes.
With that one success, Colonel Hartland Sanders changed the way Americans eat chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC, was born.

Remember, never give up and always believe in yourself in spite of rejection.

9 Famous People Who Will Inspire You to Never Give Up

Erin Scottberg of LearnVest

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This article is from our friends at LearnVest, a leading site for personal finance.


“Never give up.” It’s probably one of the most cliché phrases you’ll hear as you’re building your career. But there’s a reason these sayings are clichés—you never know when success really does lie around the next corner.
We know believing that is easier said than done, so we collected the following stories of famous celebrities who definitely never gave up, including Sarah Jessica Parker, Stephen King, and J.K. Rowling, for starters.
All these folks are now household names, but they didn’t become one easily. Some lived in their car, others suffered family abuse, and almost all encountered rejection after rejection professionally and personally—before finally landing a foot in the door. Read on and get inspired!

1. J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling had just gotten a divorce, was on government aid, and could barely afford to feed her baby in 1994, just three years before the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone, was published. When she was shopping it out, she was so poor she couldn’t afford a computer or even the cost of photocopying the 90,000-word novel, so she manually typed out each version to send to publishers. It was rejected dozens of times until finally Bloomsbury, a small London publisher, gave it a second chance after the CEO’s eight year-old daughter fell in love with it.

Photo courtesy of Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com.

2. Stephen King

King was broke and struggling when he was first trying to write. He lived in a trailer with his wife—also a writer—and they both worked multiple jobs to support their family while pursuing their craft. They were so poor they had to borrow clothes for their wedding and had gotten rid of the telephone because it was too expensive.
King received so many rejection letters for his works that he developed a system for collecting them. In his book On Writing, he recalls: “By the time I was 14...the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.” He received 60 rejections before selling his first short story, "The Glass Floor," for $35. Even his now best-selling book, Carrie, wasn’t a hit at first. After dozens of rejections, he finally sold it for a meager advance to Doubleday Publishing, where the hardback sold only 13,000 copies—not great. Soon after, though, Signet Books signed on for the paperback rights for $400,000, $200,000 of which went to King. Success achieved!

Photo courtesy of Featureflash / Shutterstock.com.

3. Jim Carrey

When Carrey was 14 years old, his father lost his job, and his family hit rough times. They moved into a VW van on a relative’s lawn, and the young aspiring comedian—who was so dedicated to his craft that he mailed his resume to The Carroll Burnett Show just a few years earlier, at age 10—took an eight-hours-per-day factory job after school to help make ends meet.
At age 15, Carrey performed his comedy routine onstage for the first time—in a suit his mom made him—and totally bombed, but he was undeterred. The next year, at 16, he quit school to focus on comedy full time. He moved to LA shortly after, where he would park on Mulholland Drive every night and visualize his success. One of these nights he wrote himself a check for $10,000,000 for “Acting Services Rendered,” which he dated for Thanksgiving 1995. Just before that date, he hit his payday with Dumb and Dumber. He put the deteriorated check, which he’d kept in his wallet the whole time, in his father’s casket.

Photo courtesy of Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com.

4. Tyler Perry

Perry had a rough childhood. He was physically and sexually abused growing up, got kicked out of high school, and tried to commit suicide twice—once as a preteen and again at 22. At 23 he moved to Atlanta and took up odd jobs as he started working on his stage career.
In 1992 he wrote, produced, and starred in his first theater production, I Know I’ve Been Changed, somewhat informed by his difficult upbringing. Perry put all his savings into the show and it failed miserably; the run lasted just one weekend and only 30 people came to watch. He kept up with the production, working more odd jobs and often slept in his car to get by. Six years later, Perry finally broke through when, on its seventh run, the show became a success. He’s since gone on to have an extremely successful career as a director, writer, and actor. In fact, Perry was named Forbes’ highest paid man in entertainment in 2011.

Photo courtesy of Joe Seer / Shutterstock.com.

5. Sarah Jessica Parker

Parker was born in a poor coal-mining town in rural Ohio, the youngest of four children. Her parents divorced when she was two, and her mother remarried shortly thereafter and had an additional four children. Parker’s stepfather, a truck driver, was often out of work, so the future starlet took up singing and dancing at a very young age to help supplement her mom’s teaching income and feed their 10-person family.
Despite hard times and occasionally being on welfare, Parker’s mom continued to encourage her children’s interest in the arts. The family moved to Cincinnati, where Parker was enrolled in a ballet, music, and theater school on scholarship. When she was 11 years old, the family took a trip to New York City so Parker could audition for a Broadway play. The trip was a success—she and her brother were both cast, and the family relocated to New York. Parker continued to work hard and land roles, eventually becoming the title character of TV juggernaut Sex and the City.

Photo courtesy of Featureflash / Shutterstock.com.

6. Colonel (Harland) Sanders

Colonel Harland Sanders was fired from a variety of jobs throughout his career before he first started cooking chicken in his roadside Shell Service Station in 1930, when he was 40 years old, during the Great Depression. His gas station didn’t actually have a restaurant, so he served diners in his attached personal living quarters.
Over the next 10 years, he perfected his “Secret Recipe” and pressure fryer cooking method for his famous fried chicken and moved onto bigger locations. His chicken was even praised in the media by food critic Duncan Hines (yes, that Duncan Hines). However, as the interstate came through the Kentucky town where the Colonel’s restaurant was located in the 1950s, it took away important road traffic, and the Colonel was forced to close his business and retire, essentially broke. Worried about how he was going to survive off his meager $105 monthly pension check, he set out to find restaurants who would franchise his secret recipe—he wanted a nickel for each piece of chicken sold. He drove around, sleeping in his car, and was rejected more than 1,000 times before finally finding his first partner.

Photo of courtesy of Wikimedia.

7. Shania Twain

Twain’s career actually began more out of necessity than raw ambition. Her parents divorced when she was two, and she rarely saw her father. Her mom and stepfather, to whom she grew close, often couldn’t make enough to get by, so Twain started singing in bars to make extra money when she was just eight years old.
She recalls her mother waking her up at all hours to get up and perform. Sadly, when she was 21, her mother and stepfather were killed in a head-on car accident with a logging truck on the highway. Twain put her career on hold to step in and take care of her three younger siblings (who were in their teens at the time). She sang in resorts and put off going after big-time stardom until her sister and brothers were old enough to care for themselves. Only once her youngest brother graduated high school did she feel OK heading down to Nashville to pursue her career.

Photo courtesy of Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com.

8. Emily Blunt

Before Blunt was getting nominated for Golden Globes and landing leading roles on the stage and big screen, she could barely carry a conversation with her classmates: Between ages seven and 14, Emily had a major stutter. As she told W magazine, "I was a smart kid, and had a lot to say, but I just couldn't say it. It would just haunt me. I never thought I'd be able to sit and talk to someone like I'm talking to you right now."
But that all changed when one of her junior high teachers encouraged her to try out for the school play—a totally unappealing feat given the fact that she had such a hard time communicating. But the teacher kept gently pressing and suggested she try accents and character voices to help get the words out—and it worked. By the end of her teens, Blunt had overcome her stutter and went on to achieve the successful career she has now.

Photo courtesy of DFree / Shutterstock.com.

9. Oprah Winfrey

Oprah’s dealt with a lot throughout her public life—criticism about her weight, racism, intrusive questions about her sexuality, just to name a few—but she never let it get in the way of her ambition and drive. When you look at her childhood, her personal triumphs are cast in an even more remarkable light.
Growing up, Oprah was reportedly a victim of sexual abuse and was repeatedly molested by her cousin, an uncle, and a family friend. Later, she became pregnant and gave birth to a child at age 14, who passed away just two weeks later. But Oprah persevered, going on to finish high school as an honors student, earning a full scholarship to college, and working her way up through the ranks of television, from a local network anchor in Nashville to an international superstar and creator of her OWN network (we couldn’t help ourselves).

Photo courtesy of s_buckley / Shutterstock.com.