From Thomas Edison: “I have not failed; I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.”
From Michael Jordan: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
From Winston Churchill: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
From Abraham Lincoln: “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Failure is not easy to swallow. Let’s face it, it feels bad, you get down on yourself, kick yourself around a bit and then what? For most ambitious people, then dust them off and go back at it again. As a society, we do everything in our power not to fail.
The other day I was about to pick a potato out of my garden for the first time and I was so concerned about picking it wrong that I turned on my computer, Googled “Picking Potatoes” and then watched a YOUTUBE video made by a potato farmer. I did this so that I wouldn’t “do it wrong”.
The fact is, that no one is exempt from making mistakes or feeling like a failure. If we only look at our failures in a negative light then we are sending a powerful message to our brain and we might not recover from that negativity.
But, if we can rephrase our inner voice to say, “How will this failure lead to my future success?” or train our management teams to say to their employees, “We are going to judge your success based on your failure.” Then we are setting ourselves and others up for SUCCESS.
HAPPY FAILINGS!
Stephanie Wachman, Executive Coach, www.stephaniewachman.com, 720-232-3693
© Life In Balance LLC
