It has been said that failure should
be our teacher, not our undertaker.
Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a
temporary detour, not a dead-end.
Failure is something we can avoid
only by saying nothing, doing nothing,
and being nothing.
It may motivate you more toward
your own goals to know that some of
the most famous and well-known people
in modern times had to overcome
obstacles as difficult as anyone's
before they finally reached the top. It
takes persistence and total commitment
to your goals, but it's possible.
Thomas Edison's father called him a
"dunce." His headmaster in school
told Edison he would never make a
success of anything.
Henry Ford barely made it through
high school.
The machines of the world's greatest
inventor, Leonardo da Vinci, were
never built, and many wouldn't have
worked anyway.
Edwin Land, the inventor of the
Polaroid Land camera, failed absolutely
at developing instant movies. He
described his attempts as trying to use
an impossible chemistry and a nonexistent
technology to make an unmanufacturable
product for which there was
no discernable demand. These hurdles,
in his opinion, created the optimum
working conditions for the creative
mind.
Joe Paterno, head coach of the Penn
State University football team, was
asked by the media how he felt when
his team lost a game. He rapidly
replied that losing was probably good
for the team, since that was how the
players learned what they were doing
wrong.
Setbacks and failures mean little or
nothing in themselves. The whole
meaning of any setback — or any success,
for that matter — is in how we
take it and what we
make of it.
We often look at
high achievers and
assume they had a
string of lucky breaks
or made it without
much effort. Usually
the opposite is
true, and the socalled
superstar or
"overnight success"
had an incredibly
rough time before he
or she attained any
lasting success.
You may not know
the background of a
certain laundry worker who earned
$60 a week at his job but had the burning
desire to be a writer. His wife
worked nights, and he spent nights
and weekends typing manuscripts to
send to publishers and agents. Each
one was rejected with a form letter that
gave him no assurance that his manuscript
had even been read. I've
received a few of those special valentines
myself through the years, and I
can tell you firsthand that they're not
the greatest self-esteem builders.
But finally, a warm, more personal
rejection letter came in the mail to the
laundry worker, stating that, although
his work was not good enough at this
point to warrant publishing, he had
promise as a writer and he should keep
writing.
He forwarded two more manuscripts
to the same friendly-yet-rejecting publisher
over the next 18 months, and as
before, he struck out with both of
them. Finances got so tight for the
young couple that they had to disconnect
their telephone to pay for medicine
for their baby.
Feeling totally discouraged, he
threw his latest manuscript into the
garbage. His wife, totally committed to
his life goals and believing in his talent,
took the manuscript out of the
trash and sent it to Doubleday, the
publisher who had sent the friendly
rejections. The book, titled Carrie, sold
over 5 million copies and, as a movie,
became one of the top-grossing films in
1976. The laundry worker, of course,
was Stephen King.
Think back to a time in your life you
have found difficult. Try to see what
you gained as a result what you
learned, what strength you found even
in the most trying time — or what
strength you find now in your having
overcome it. Perhaps you may never
have been aware of what you gained
until you think about it now. The
Chinese have a saying: "Eat bitter to
taste sweet." It means that by living
through painful times, we can become
stronger people. I certainly agree with
this, and the transformation depends
on our ability to discover something
beyond the pain.
Source: Psychology of Motivation by
Dr. Denis Waitley. Learn more at
www.AdvantEdgeMag.com/Waitley
today.