Monthly Archives: February 2021

21

Life Learning

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Make The Most of Your Failure

Learn from failure try again
Samuel Beckett

Sometimes it feels like we can never do anything right, that everything we do is inherently wrong, and we have no clue what we are doing.  Most thinking people will feel this way at some point in their lives. It is just human nature.  Often as we try out new thoughts to see which ones are “keepers” and which ones need to be thrown back, we will experience failure characterized as a mistake.   However, it is important to understand that mistakes in life are not only inevitable. They are vital to our growth as people and professionals.  You will never experience genius in any field without first experiencing a few missteps along the way.

Learning from the cruel hand of experience has been occurring throughout history. It would help if you didn’t allow your mistakes to define you because you have been presented with a powerful growth opportunity when you approach it from the right frame of mind.  If you analyze the failure, why did this happen?  Why didn’t it work out?  What can I do better?  How can I fix it?  You will start to build on the misfortune, using the knowledge you were able to compile by failing to move you toward a solid construction of a success.

 

Learning More From Failure

Make the most of your mistakes
New shirt!

It is often difficult to learn from success because if you feel everything went right, you are not going to be looking as hard for the weaknesses.  When you experience failure, it is not desirable, so you are motivated to find out what is wrong or what you can do better and fix it.  This was the case for me as a coach.  When we won, it was easy to pat yourself on the back and feel good about yourself.  You won, how bad could you be?  But when you lose, you know that changes have to be made, both mentally and physically, to experience success the next time.  The weaknesses jump out at you, and you always feel like you should have seen it coming.  Or even if you were able to recognize the problem, it is difficult to motivate change in people experiencing success.  Only after the group touches the cold hand of failure will they be willing to accept change.  We are like this as individuals, and if we are experiencing nothing but perceived success, there is no motivation for change.   That is why we all learn more from failure than we can learn from success.

Our Society Fears Failure

success-and-failure-sign
One can lead to the other.

Today, failure is looked at as something to be avoided today, even more so than in the past.   Parents look at their kids today and want to control every aspect of their lives so that they can protect them from failure.  In doing this, they rob their kids of one of the most powerful learning experiences they can have.  Why are we afraid to let kids make mistakes?  I think it is for several reasons. First of all, mistakes can be painful. In many ways, some poor decisions can affect someone for their entire life, or in some cases, end a life.  This is tragic but doesn’t change the fact that an individual needs the freedom to make mistakes to reach the potential that they have inside.  Lessons learned in this manner are lifelong and provide a solid base for development.  You can’t make mistakes for your kids, and you can only guide them, love them, pick them up when they fall, and urge them to keep moving forward, trying again.

When you look at your life from an outside perspective and analyze events you would characterize as mistakes, honestly, make a list of the positives that have come from it.  You will be surprised at how your perspective will change.  We all want to avoid mistakes, and the wisdom of time allows us to do this more often.  You cannot live your life in fear of a mistake, or you are not living your life at all.

Learning from Failure Quotes:

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
– Albert Einstein –

 

Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.
– Og Mandino –
Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
– Abraham Lincoln –
The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.
– Dr. Joyce Brothers –
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
– Elbert Hubbard –
If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative
– Woody Allen –
Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure.
– William Saroyan –
To succeed, you must fail so that you know what not to do the next time.
– Anthony D’Angelo –
Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction.
– Al Bernstein –
Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.
– Malcolm Forbes –
You learn as much from those who have failed as from those who have succeeded.
– Michael Johnson –
From success to failure is one step; from failure to success is a long road.
– Yiddish Proverb –
Success does not consist in never making blunders but in never making the same one a second time.
– Josh Billings –
Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
– Al Franken –
Instruction does not prevent wasted time or mistakes, and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.
– James Anthony Froude –
Our life business is not to succeed but to continue to fail in good spirits.
– Robert Louis Stevenson –
The things that hurt us teach us.
– Author Unknown –
Being defeated is often only a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
– Marilyn Vos Savant –
My great concern is not whether you have failed but whether you are content with your failure.
– Abraham Lincoln
You’re on the road to success when you realize that failure is only a detour.
– Author is unknown –
Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.
– Zig Ziglar –
It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.
– David Feherty –

 

21

Look Up

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This is a phone. It used to be in your home and if you weren't there, nobody could get in touch with you. Scary to most people today.
This is a phone. It used to be in your home, and if you weren’t there, nobody could get in touch with you. Scary to most people today.

Few things are more invasive in all of our lives today than the electronic tethers and ties that are continually connecting us to the world. Are we really in need of connection?

Notice all the time that you are spending checking social media, keeping your phone handy, just in case………….someone calls, texts, or sends you a social media message on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.  It seems to me that this type of focus is not doing anyone any good. The world’s electronic tentacles attach strongly and make us dependent on a small world contained within our phones. There is a giant world in front of you that might be missed if you are focused only on the action in the palm of your hand.

I am old enough to remember what life was like before we had this technology.  Your phone was at home, and when you left, people didn’t have to talk with you until you got to work or wherever you were going.  You could play a round of golf or go for a walk without any way to communicate with the outside world. We all survived just fine, and so did the world.   Now, if you can’t answer a text message fast enough, people feel slighted and upset with you. There is a viral video about breaking the electronic.

How often do we see this happening? People are way more worried about who they are not with than who they are with.
How often do we see this happening? People are way more worried about who they are not with than who they are with.

connection and the opportunities for real socialization that we are all missing because of our inability to stop staring at our phone and start looking to interact with other people. (see video here) I have personally made it my mission to be more aware of what is going on in my reality and my experiences.  I have even enforced this rule on people I have conversations with.  Nobody can check a text or send a message through the conversation, and answering your phone is definitely not tolerated.  I do this by simply pointing out that I value the conversation and the experience of talking more than a text message from someone else.

What is going to happen if the message isn’t returned instantly? Most times, the answer is absolutely nothing, and the conversations I have had have become more interesting and in the moment.  By doing this, I have been able to know people better and stay in the moment of the conversation. There is no need to multitask and not give each person in your life your attention when you have the opportunity to do so. Try focusing on what is real in your life, the people who you are spending time with rather than worrying about what is happening somewhere else, with someone else, and life will be more enjoyable.

I do this by simply pointing out that I value the conversation and the experience of talking more than a text message from someone else. What is going to happen if the message isn’t returned instantly? Most times, the answer is absolutely nothing, and the conversations I have had have become more interesting and in the moment.  By doing this, I have been able to know people better and stay in the moment of the conversation. There is no need to multitask and not give each person in your life your attention when you have the opportunity to do so. Try focusing on what is real in your life, the people who you are spending time with rather than worrying about what is happening somewhere else, with someone else, and life will be more enjoyable.

There is no need to multitask and not give each person in your life your attention when you have the opportunity to do so. Try focusing on what is real in your life, the people who you are spending time with rather than worrying about what is happening somewhere else, with someone else, and life will be more enjoyable.

It is easy to remember to treat the people that you are speaking to with simple respect. Listen, respond and socialize.
It is easy to remember to treat the people that you are speaking to with simple respect. Listen, respond and socialize.

Many people today have a hard time relating to people directly that they stand or sit in a group together and text to other people or, worse yet, to each other.  Putting the phones down, getting your head out of the electronic world, and looking into other people’s reality might be the best thing that you can do to improve your experience of life. Give yourself a chance actually to have a conversation with your friend. Listen, respond, and react to real.

Give yourself a chance actually to have a conversation with your friend. Listen, respond, and react to real-life social cues that are right in front of you. Please leave your phone in your pocket and interact with life and the situations that it presents. You might find something that has been missing, and you will most likely find enjoyment in life that you have never known.

I know that in my case, I have definitely benefited from breaking the electronic tether as often as possible.  Give it a shot and see what type of communication comes into your life and how much more significant it is. This is an old school song about what it was like to call someone you wanted to talk to. It is an old experience but a good one.

21

Enemy

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know-your-enemy3Today I fought my greatest enemy.  They seemed to be following me throughout my day and gleefully took each opportunity to point out my apparent shortcomings. My enemy spoke against me of decisions made in the past. Then I was inundated with their worry about the future. It was a non-stop assault that had its desired effect on me, I felt let down, angry, upset, and wanted to fight back.  So I engaged my greatest enemy with the truth, which always seems to be the best weapon. My thoughts are the enemy. My mind continually provides negative ones if I let it.  But pushed in the right direction, a positive reward can be found. Here are some truths which build the positive.  Look at your life.

The Past Doesn’t Matter.

I calmly explained that the past is an illusion that we all choose to remember our way. All people tend to have selective and prejudice memories about the events of their lives. Sometimes making them leave the pastmore prominent and more terrifying than they were to justify our behavior today or use them as motivation. Sometimes we tend to wax nostalgic about the past and make people and moments more significant than they were. Our attachment is due to our emotional behavior at the time or a wish to experience it again today. Our memories are not entirely true. The past is a game of the mind, and you remember most of it exactly how you want to.

As I explained this to the enemy, there was a quick recap of the events he perceived as mistakes in my life. All brought one thought of truth.
“Accurate or not, there is no way a thing can be changed today.”  It is all history, and it is done and over. The best any of us can do with our past is to learn the lessons it teaches, then put it away and move forward with an optimistic outlook on the potential that each new day brings to us.

The Future is Never Known

Then almost immediately defeated in bringing up the futurepast, the enemy moved to worry about the future. Throwing all catastrophic scenarios that may occur if I didn’t start to take some specific action that the enemy condescendingly called “Common Sense.” Yet, I was able to fight this battle with thoughts about the future. Nothing has been written in stone. All things are continuously changing, and no matter how much detail you plan something with, the results may be different from what you ever expected. Worrying about the future is taking away the capability for happiness today. It robs you of the ability to enjoy the moment. My enemy revels in this type of victory, but today was not his day. I was resolute in my convictions. Plan for tomorrow as best you can, and let tomorrow take care of itself because, in the end, it always will.

The Victory is In Today

So as my enemy, frustrated and angry at not being able to raise my anger, I silently questioned himself. I started only nowto think about the only thing left, and that is this moment right now. Sitting here, typing this, right here and right now. Not even my greatest enemy can disturb the truth and wonder that this moment contains. As I breathe in and out and contemplate the moment, I realize that the enemy is gone.

You won the game for the day, but there will be more struggles in the future because the most significant enemy lives, smugly, arrogantly, and entirely within me.  Waiting to remind me to: Accept the past, don’t worry about the future, and live in the moment. To do anything else seems like a losing battle.