Risk Failure

"I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying." - Michael Jordan

With merely ten to twenty seconds left in overtime play, a spectacular header produces a goal and ties the game.

The result is renewed hope for a team on the brink of elimination. For the other the tie delays a chance to advance in a tournament. In both cases, each could have or could decide to quit and give up the fight.

Life can be cruel and life can be very rewarding. But we will never know the emotion or experience the joy if we never try. One could give up and walk away from it all, trying to avoid any failures. If we did, how could we ever then triumph in success when we accomplish the task at hand.

One goal, one tie, one loss, one setback does not define you. But not trying at all will define you and will isolate you from success.

Get out there and risk failure. Get out there and find success.

Stay inspired my friends!

Defeat

Defeat III - Self-portrait by Todd Marinovich

"Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure." - George Edward Woodberry

Failure is one of the biggest fears that many people have in life. Failing at work, failing in relationships, failing at school or failing at trying. It grips us to the point that we settle back into a stagnant frame of mind. The safety of not trying to do anything takes over our lives.

It is at this point we stop growing. Our life will be as it always was and change can never happen if we allow the fear of failing to overtake our mind. We have now accomplished true defeat if we let it happen.

When we step out and try, defeat is merely a teaching point on our road. We take the lessons learned and turn them into an experience that places us closer to success. But you will never know unless you step out and try.

Let go the fear of failure and gain more in your life. The dark walls you surround yourself with will fill with the brightness of light. As you make your attempts and failures occur, your steps forward will not cease. You will continue moving forward with the new found knowledge towards greater things.

Stay inspired my friends!

All to Give

"I will grow. I will become something new and grand, but no grander than I now am. Just as the sky will be different in a few hours, its present perfection and completeness is not deficient, so am I presently perfect and not deficient because I will be different tomorrow. I will grow and I am not deficient." -Wayne Dyer

Our lives are full of choices regarding how we are willing to give of ourselves. We choose to apply either small or large amounts of energy to accomplish a task. Many times we choose to give nothing as we are afraid of failure. The idea that you could attempt something and not complete it frightens you.

There are times when you give only a partial effort as you believe the perception of having tried is all that is needed. You step half way, keeping one foot firmly planted on solid ground. A goal can never be achieved by half-trying. When you give all that you can in attempting those things in life, there is no failure in not achieving the goal. In many respects, you may find that what you eventually achieve is not necessarily what you first wanted.

A great example comes from a friend who recently passed away.

Belinda is a dear friend of our family, one of those people everyone should have as a friend. As many of us are, she was not as athletic as she once was. But this particular day, the goal she wanted to achieve was only forty feet away.

It would be equivalent to some twenty steps if walking, but this forty feet was straight up. It was a climbing tower with varying challenges for even the most fit. The goal or reward once reaching the top was an exhilarating zip line ride down over a lake. The ultimate reward after accomplishing a tough climb.

Belinda was determined and resolute in not letting fear or physical limitations from achieving the prize. So up the first ten feet of cross bars and transitioning to a netted ladder. Difficult climbing if one is not used to using the many muscles in your legs and arms on a daily basis.

Exhaustion was beginning to make a presence when she made it through twenty feet of climbing. The next ten feet involved climbing a swinging ten foot log. There are foot pegs at various points, but again the physical requirements will take its toll.

The fear and trust in the equipment always plays with you mentally as you climb for the first time. A chorus of encouragement rang out as Belinda made it up to the thirty foot level. By now though she had given everything physically that she could. She had expended any remaining amount of energy that her body could muster for the final ten feet.

I have heard the phrase "giving it all" said many times but it isn't often that you truly see it happen. Many times people are said to "give it all", but have more left in them. This time I saw it unfold before us, Belinda had given all that she had. There were words of encouragement and adoration for a great attempt.

Belinda may not have achieved the goal she set out for, but I do believe she achieved something else. It was a prize found inside, a new found belief in herself and the possibilities in life.

You see, all of us will learn something about ourselves when we step out and as we move towards a goal in the belief that we will succeed. Accept that your mission to succeed may result in finding something completely different. The end result may mean achieving something far greater for your life.

Give it all when moving towards a dream and embrace what you eventually find. Belinda achieved perfection in that moment and so can you. Stay inspired my friends.

Failure to Success

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 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

All of my life I have had failures of one varying degree or another. I have tried to be the best at everything I do and fallen short many of those times. But what all of my failures have prepared me to be the success that I am in areas I never would have thought possible.

You have the same ability to learn from failure and succeed solely because you did fail. If you let failure take over and prevent you from ever trying again, then failure has won. But if you allow failure to be another learning experience, a lession understood; it will allow you to use failure to succeed.

Never let yourself get down because of failures. Get back up a thousand times if you have to. And remember that success will come to you.

Stay inspired my friends and you can also start reading different types of articles I've written at Street Articles.

Success From Failure

"Failure is an event, never a person." -William D. Brown

There are stories which run the full length of history about failure. Stories which tell us how failure is turned into success. Stories which remind us that failure is not a destination but a short term experience.

Everyone is familiar with 3M Post-It Notes. The basic story is of a man named Spencer Silver who worked in the 3M research laboratories. In the late 1960s, he was working on developing a strong adhesive to incorporate it to some of 3M’s current products. After some trial and error he developed an adhesive, but to his own disappointment, it was even weaker than what 3M already manufactured at the time. It stuck to things but could easily be lifted off.

He tried finding uses for it within 3M with little success. Then four years later, another 3M scientist named Arthur Fry was singing in his church’s choir. He used bookmarkers to keep his place in the hymnal but they kept falling out. Then he remembered Silver’s weak adhesive and he used it to coat his bookmarkers. Surprise! With the weak adhesive the bookmarkers stayed in place, yet lifted off without damaging the pages.

From failure, success is born.

• Henry Ford went broke five times before he finally succeeded.
• Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor and went bankrupt numerous times before he built Disneyland.
• Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn’t read until he was seven. A teacher described him as “mentally slow."
• The movie Star Wars was rejected by several movie studios before 20th-Century Fox decided to produce what is one of the largest grossing movies in film history.
• After Fred Astaire's first screen test, a memo from the testing director at MGM in 1933 said, “Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!” Fred Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his home.
• Babe Ruth, considered one of the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record, also holds the record for strikeouts.
• Margaret Mitchell's classic Gone with the Wind was turned down by more than twenty-five publishers.
• In 1954, the manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere… son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”
• Dr. Seuss ' first children's book, And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. The twenty-eighth publisher, Vanguard press, sold six million copies of the book.

Failure occurs a million times a day. What matters is the million times people got back up and tried again.

You have the ability to move on and try again and again. Only you can keep you from doing so. You will learn from the failure and you will succeed. So get up from the failure, get past the failure, learn from the failure and achieve something greater.