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Success Through Failure

Every now and then something really good appears on the TV screen. Last week while watching a sporting event, a commercial came on that struck me as being very important. It starred Michael Jordan and he was relating how he had lost over 8000 games in his career and taken 26 game-winning shots…and missed. He continued on this theme in order to make the point that his success was due in great part to his ability to learn from failure.

What a great truth this is. All successful men and women in business, politics, medicine, you name it, all understand this great truth. Failure is the essential element for success. It’s through failure that we learn the REAL success lessons. Some say we need to tolerate failure…no, we need to embrace failure, understand it’s role in our eventual successes. You see, to tolerate is to endure, to put up with it, so to speak. No, we need to EMBRACE it. Imagine that each failure is a signpost that, if you follow the sign (not try to avoid or go around it) it will lead you DIRECTLY to your goal. This is the great truth.

To follow the sign (failure) you must examine the failure, find out what you can learn from it so that you can get better. Some people think that if they try and fail, it’s a sign that they’re not supposed to have what they’re going after. The reality is, it’s only an indication that you have more to learn. And when you learn it, you’ll be better. Sometimes one of my students will make a mistake and say: “I’m sorry!” I usually reply with my motto: “Don’t be sorry, be better.” Get better by keeping your head up and learning from your mistakes and failures.

And remember this; there is no failure unless you give up. Do three things, one, keep your eyes on you aiming point, tow, take action and get started and finally, learn from your mistakes and treat your failures as nothing more than opportunities to more intelligently begin again.

Mack Newton

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