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Succeed from Failure

Trial and error are the way of solving life’s problems. Most people are afraid to try because they are afraid to err. They make the mistake of believing that all error is wrong, when most of it is both helpful and necessary. Errors give the feedback that show the way to success. Our goal is always to find a real and creative solution. To err is not to fail, but to take a step on the road to success. If you make no errors and have no failures in life – then you really must not be doing anything.

Some people fail to reach many different goals in life because of some early success; many more fail because of their ego-driven commitment to what worked in the past. They shy away from further attempts, afraid that they might fail, diminishing the glow from a past success. Besides, they reason, the success of something new might even prove that those achievements they made in the past were not great after all.

Strength can become weakness. Every talent contains an opposite that sometimes makes it into a handicap. Successful people like to win and achieve high standards. This can make them so afraid of failure it greatly affects their lives. When a positive trait, like achievement, becomes too strong in someone’s life, it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap.

Achievement is a powerful tool for most successful people. They build their world on it. They achieve at everything they do: school, college, sports, the arts, hobbies, work. Each new achievement brings more power to their lives.

How can failure work for us? It is simple, for every failure we experience we learn what does not work or a behavior we should not repeat. Let’s not be afraid of failure. The misperception is that failure is somehow bad for us. Failure is just the opposite and here are eight reasons why failure is a launching pad for success.

Failure manifests determination
Failure stimulates creativity
Failure fully engages your brain
Failure brings change
Failure shows the strong from the weak
Failure motivates you to try again
Failure is an opportunity to learn
Without failure you become complacent

Here, the idea is basic, failure is the change agent to becoming successful; we should not let the negative perception surrounding it bring us down. We are in charge of our lives and turning any failure into a positive experience.

Failure is a learning opportunity, but only if we seize it. More often than not failure is seen as something that should be hidden and avoided. How often in our lives do we think people make the same mistakes over and over again because no one ever admits to the mistake or examines why the mistake was made.

Every year we strive to do be better and be more successful at what we do. Often, however, we only remember successes that are so large that they hit us right in the face, when they are so large that everyone else congratulates us.

It is often not the big steps that determine a success, it is the little things. Maybe we wrote a thank you letter, or you called a friend to see how they were doing. Maybe we referred an associate to someone else to solve a problem that they could not. We could also have rewarded someone for doing the smallest thing that really helped someone else.

By understanding and planning for our successes we will be able to repeat them and eventually be able to achieve the goal of a successful life.

Plan for success, learn from failures.

on Feb 22, 2009 Posted by: MrB

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Winning - Learn to Lose

When losses start piling up, self-doubt is sure to follow. Should you change your approach? We don't like to lose. We don't even like to write about losing. But we've all been through it-having a losing streak that doesn't turn around no matter what you do.

Losses usually lead to questions and doubts: Should I alter my approach? Set new rules? Change my expectations? How do I keep myself from getting frustrated? How do I keep them from losing confidence in me? Should I start looking ahead to next year? How do I respond to the complaints of family and associates? Your answers and actions will make a huge difference in how things turn out.

Check In With Yourself
It is important to realize that losing is not an indictment of your ability. However, the way you respond to losing can be. When losses pile up, your values and leadership will be exposed in a new way. How you respond to adversity will show those around you what you're really about.

That's why the first step to take when you start losing is to review your philosophy. If you have a written philosophy, re-read it. It will help remind you why you strive so hard to achieve, and for most of us, it's not only about winning. Staying true to your philosophy is paramount to keeping any situation positive

Here are three critical areas that will define who you are during a losing streak:

Consistent Expectations: When you are losing, it can be tempting to lower your standards for behavior and work ethic. However, you stand to gain nothing from you lowering your expectations.

Emotional Control: For everyone, keeping emotions in check becomes more difficult when the losses keep coming. But this is the time when your leadership and maturity are most needed to set an example for yourself and others.

Staying Positive: It is very normal to feel negative about who you are when the losses pile up. You need to fight this every step of the way. Every word out of your mouth and all your body language needs to convey that you have not lost hope.

Even those who are accustomed to occasional losses may not be ready for a losing streak. It is important to remember that every one experiences these temporary streaks, and they pave the way for the all-important winning streak.

As long as you take a look at the big picture you will no longer be disappointed by losing, as you will understand that it is part of winning. Trying to win all the time is a frustrating experience and can take all the fun out of life. Just relax and try to learn from each activity that you are involved in, whether you win or lose, then take what you learned and apply it to your next challenge. Not only will it adjust your perspective, it will also make you a much better person and bring back the enjoyment of playing the game of life.

Defeat doesn't have to be agony - if you can make it a learning experience

Why lie about it? Losing is no fun. Nobody likes to lose, whether it's in work, politics, sports or love. However, here's an angle you may not have considered: Losing can actually be good for you. Losing takes you by the throat and says, "Listen, there are a few things you need to reconsider." It demands that you take a fresh look at your faults and misguided expectations. In fact, if you're ready to learn from it, the experience of losing can help turn you into a winner.

Now, at some point in life, you probably got the idea that you're supposed to win all the time. Society encourages all of us to be competitive in whatever we do, both professionally and personally. Yet the most successful people stress the process of winning rather than the end results. That's not to say that you shouldn't care about the quality of your performance. Nobody goes into anything looking to lose, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to succeed in whatever you do.

Losing like a winner

So, what can you do to help turn a losing situation around? You can start by throwing a tantrum. Pout and moan. Then, once you've gotten that out of your system, forget about it. You should look at it as a purge. Then put it behind you. That may be easier said than done, but being aware of your anger or disappointment can help you turn negatives into positives.

Next, move on to the hard part: learning from the situation. We seldom, if ever, have any control over outcomes. What we have control over is the process. If you go out and attain your personal goals, even if you still lose, so what? What's a like-killer is when you go out and get your head handed to you over and over again and never stop to ask, why? Yet if you're willing to dig into the reasons you lost, you'll eventually overcome them.

The Lesson:

Losing is not the end of the World; in fact it can have a positive effect on Life. Use your losses and learn from them - the root causes - the deeper reasons that you have lost at anything. Winning will be the result of your efforts.

on Feb 18, 2009 Posted by: MrB

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Prepare for War

There are wonderful analogies that can be applied to every part of our daily lives - the theatre, sports, education and doing battle or preparing for war are topics that contain these lessons that paint exceptional imagery for everyone to use.

The Lesson this week is concerning Preparing for War or Going into Battle - which each of us does everyday - some people do this consciously and others simply allow it to happen. We will paint a clear picture of analogies between living and war, in this lesson. The purpose is to create mental imagery for you to use when dealing with opportunities that present themselves and when you are faced with challenges that you must overcome in order to succeed.

First and foremost, a few thoughts about having or creating a strategy. What is a strategy? A strategy is a systematic approach in winning long-term objectives. The English term, strategy, is from the ancient Greek, meaning literally, the thinking of a general. The term has a very solid foundation because military generals were the first group of managers that had to think long-term about complex competitive situations that were literally matters of life and death.

There have been many good generals in history that were able to do this, but Sun Tzu, the great Chinese General, offered something different. He was able to turn strategy into an art. We suggest that you read The Art of War by Sun Tzu in order to gain a more complete perspective on his thinking and teaching - you will be able to relate his theories to your life with a very positive effect.

on Feb 11, 2009 Posted by: MrB

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Embrace Risk / Cherish Reward

to venture upon; take or run the chance of
in a dangerous situation or status; in jeopardy:

Are you a Babe Ruth or a Ty Cobb? Do you consistently get on base or do you swing for the fences? The answer will tell you a lot about yourself, and if so, what style will best suit you. Understanding your attitude towards risk and reward is essential for a happy life.

Babe Ruth was a great home-run hitter; Ty Cobb has the highest career batting average. Interestingly, for batting average, Babe Ruth isn't even in the top 100. When you swing for the fences, you strike out more than when you just try to get consistently get on base.

So are you a slugger or a base hitter? What's your tolerance for risk vs. reward? Employees tend to be base hitters, and entrepreneurs tend to swing for the fences. That's not a hard and fast rule, of course.

The underlying question has to do with your tolerance for risk and desire for higher reward. For all the talk about the high salaries of corporate CEOs, the reality is that most millionaires are self-employed professionals or entrepreneurs. Yet most strike out a few times. "It is not a question of whether you will fail; it is simply a question of when and how."

How much risk are you willing to tolerate for the expected reward? Or, flip it around... how much reward does it take to justify the risk?

There's no right answer. What are the odds that you are going to be successful? Of course, you believe that you have something that makes your odds better than the average. Every successful person has thought that. So have most of the ones who've failed, too!

If you swing for the fences, taking slightly greater risk in your endeavors may be your best choice. If you prefer a consistent batting average, perhaps you should consider lower-risk alternatives for your life’s activities, business and personal.

Again, there's no right answer, but you have to have a realistic idea of the risks involved, and the level of risk you're comfortable with, before you step up to the plate and start swinging.

These days, it seems like everything is risky, and worry itself is bad for your health. The more we learn, the less we seem to know — and if anything makes us anxious, it's uncertainty. At the same time, we're living longer, healthier lives.

The human brain is exquisitely adapted to respond to risk — uncertainty about the outcome of actions. Faced with a precipice or a predator, the brain is biased to make certain decisions. Our biases reflect the choices that kept our ancestors alive.

Still, uncertainty unbalances us, pitching us into anxiety and producing an array of cognitive distortions. Even minor dilemmas like deciding whether to get a cell phone can be intolerable for some people. Our emotions push us to make snap judgments that once were sensible — but may not be anymore.

Risk and emotion are inseparable. Fear feels like anything but a cool and detached computation of the odds. But that's precisely what it is, a lightning-fast risk assessment performed by your brain, which is ever on the lookout for danger.

Because fear strengthens memory, catastrophes such as earthquakes, plane crashes and terrorist incidents completely capture our attention. As a result, we overestimate the odds of dreadful but infrequent events and underestimate how risky ordinary events are. But driving is far more dangerous than flying, and the decision to switch caused roughly 1,000 additional auto fatalities, according to two separate analyses comparing traffic patterns. In other words, 1,000 people who chose to drive wouldn't have died had they flown instead.

Humans are ill-prepared to deal with risks that don't produce immediate negative consequences, like eating a cupcake or smoking cigarettes. As a result, we are less frightened of heart disease than we should be. Heart disease is the end result of actions that one at a time aren't especially dangerous. But repeated over the years, those actions have deadly consequences.

Forget the idea of a risk-taking personality. If there's a daredevil gene that globally affects risk-taking, researchers haven't found it. Genes do influence impulsivity, which certainly affects the risks people take. Men 15 to 25 are very risk-prone compared to same-age women and older people. More importantly, one person's risk thermostat may have different settings for different types of risk.

The word radiation stirs thoughts of nuclear power, X-rays and danger, so we shudder at the thought of erecting nuclear power plants in our neighborhoods. But every day we're bathed in radiation that has killed many more people than nuclear reactors: sunlight. It's hard for us to grasp the danger because sunlight feels so familiar and natural.

Though the odds of dying in a terror attack like 9/11 or contracting Ebola are infinitesimal, the effects of chronic stress caused by constant fear are significant.

The physiological consequences of overestimating the dangers in the world— and revving our anxiety into overdrive — are another reason risk perception matters. It's impossible to live a risk-free life: Everything we do increases some risks while lowering others. But if we understand our biases in the way we manage risks, we can adjust for them and genuinely live a more productive life.

The Lesson:

Embrace risk after it has been studied, calculated and assessed; then cherish the rewards for taking those risks that you have managed and lowered to the best of your ability.

Watch this week's coaching video!

on Feb 3, 2009 Posted by: MrB

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