Why It's a Good Thing To Fail

There was a day, not so long ago actually, that I had envisioned a very bright future… in fact, it was all within my grasp.  It was taken from me in fairly short order.  I felt pretty much defeated.  When that happens, you have two options…

You can give up and become one of those sad-eyed people you see walking around, those people whose downward stares seem to mirror the trajectory of their lives. 

You can always take the better alternative, however.

Fight back.

Take back your life. 

Soldier on. 

Call it what you will, but ultimately I’m talking about not giving up, no matter what.

Today I had to deal with the fallout of one of the aforementioned defeats.  It was something I had been dreading, one of those things I had put off for far too long.  I did it, and you know what?  It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated.  In fact, I would daresay I’m a better man for having done it.  That doesn’t change the fact that I had to spend the remainder of the day dealing with some rather strong emotions and regrets… that was to be expected.  Consider it dealt with.  I can now look in the mirror with no small measure of pride that I finally did the right thing by myself and the other parties involved.

It was mid-morning, just today, and I logged on to Facebook.  I saw a post by a good friend of mine that really hit home for me.  It was as if she knew what was going on and posted this for my benefit.I left her a comment…  “Thank you for posting the exact perfect thing at the exact perfect time. Amazing.”

I’ll let you read it too.  Shalom, the floor is yours…

 (These are some thoughts I wanted to share, after a recent discussion with some business colleagues)

"Failure will either kill you or make you stronger."

I think it's good to fail, to feel the pain and loneliness of having your dreams dashed and your hard work turned to dust...and then look around you and realize that no one can build you up again, except yourself and you can either sit in your ruins and cry forever or you can make something of yourself. Something different. Something better. You won't make the same mistakes you did before and although you may fail again, it won't be to such great degree as it was before. With each failure, you come back 10x stronger. But you have to be willing to cut off the dying parts, if you want something better to grow there (think gardening - plants pour a lot of regrowth energy into newly trimmed/pruned parts and the whole plant gets healthier over time - every time I pull a dead leaf off my geranium, a new bud grows in it's place).

They say that the the definition of "insanity" is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

How this relates to business: the key to getting sales is really simple - having products people WANT at a price they are willing to PAY and creating paths for these people to FIND YOU. If you aren't selling, it's because one of these 3 key ingredients is missing. It may be painful to admit that to yourself, especially if you have been working hard, but nothing's going to change until you accept that fact and move on.

Having failed many times at various different things, I speak from experience. I haven't "arrived" yet, but I'm a lot farther along than when I first started out in this business (4 years ago) and I've learned to separate my "artistic emotions" from my business instincts. It really has made all the difference in the world.

-Shalom-"

In addition to being wise beyond her years, Shalom is also a talented artist.  You can see (and maybe even purchase!) her works here...

http://www.shalomscottagehome.com