This is the crux and sum total of all we have been talking about. The antithesis of success is failure. Yet it is also true you must often fail if you are to succeed often as well. How is this possible? It is because those who achieve the most success also know you must fail a lot and history has substantiated this. We reviewed initially in this discourse the case of Abraham Lincoln. Consider those who hold records like the most home runs, how many times do they strikeout? The greatest sales people on Earth hear “no” more than anyone else. They consequently hear “yes” more than anyone else. We must choose to develop within ourselves a capacity to take on failure. To look disappointment, despair, what we fear, the unknown, all of it in the face and say I will still act, I can still succeed and I will not let this limit me!
One key ingredient is overcoming the need to wallow in self-pity. It is time to move on. We can emancipate ourselves from the chains of pity by choosing to ask why we are experiencing these things rather than asking what we have done to deserve these experiences. For example, as a national debate champion in high school I won the vast majority of my debate rounds. However, I remember most vividly the ones I lost. I learned so much from them. I had my eyes opened to things I never would have seen without losing and in the end I went on to take down vastly more talented contenders because I had gained the skills from those experiences to choose success.
Why are we so afraid of “no,” of failure, of rejection? It may be human nature, it may be insecurity yet mostly it may just be that we remain in our comfort zone so that we do not have to experience it. Choosing to succeed involves seeing the possibilities. Is it true that “no” is hard to hear? Yes! It is also true that if we never heard “no” we would stop living indeed. Try just one day taking a pad and pen with you and tallying every time you hear the word “no.” We all hear “no” regularly and still keep going without drowning in despair. So what is it about rejection that is difficult? It is an emotional wake we come with that says unless all is ok, everyone agrees and we succeed we feel bad and do not know what to do. In fact our dislike of rejection, “no,” etc. is meant to help us learn and grow. Experiencing feelings of dissonance are equally as crucial as experiencing feelings of harmony. In the science of learning these feelings help us grow and develop as we discussed initially. Yet we have a conscious aversion both emotionally and cognitively to them mostly because we train ourselves and choose to learn from society that these things are wrong. For example, some families will avoid any subject with even a risk of dissonance or disagreement. The great debates in history have been respectful and still been a battle of discord resulting often in a better idea than all participants had individually. This still may not make it any easier to be rejected and face failure. We need to cast aside the teaching that you should never fail and believe that there is nothing wrong with failing if you choose to succeed by learning from it. Likewise, whoever said that just because something is difficult it I not valuable. Indeed the greatest blessings and most useful moments of life happen in the midst of our greatest difficulties and challenges. As a matter of fact, “no” is the vehicle that allows us to understand the value of “yes” and how we get to “yes.” Refer back to the role of practice in demonstrating to us what our best is and enabling us to achieve excellence. The more we experience “no” and rejection by not shielding ourselves from it, the more we will choose to succeed.
The example I always think of is the courting of my wife, Cortney, before our marriage. For me it was love at first sight yet she was not as convinced. I chased her for 7 months. She dumped me 7 times. Every time saying she wanted space and this would never work. Each time my friends and everyone told me there were other fish in the sea including many other girls that were interested in dating me. I wanted to marry Cortney. I wasn’t going to force her, stalk her or anything creepy yet I was not going to give up either. The last time she dumped me we had went to her hometown to visit her family. I asked her Dad’s permission to marry her. She found out and came back to school a little later than I had returned to work. Cortney called me, met me at a library of all places told me not to dare ask her to marry me. She told me that it would never work out, that she needed her space for a while. It was devastating. I had trouble believing that it would ever work out. Somewhere, somehow I had to dig deep and chose to believe that she could still choose to love me and we might someday get married. Amazing enough I acted on my faith that it could happen. I bought the engagement ring in the midst of that breakup and my family thought I was nuts. Sure enough I got a phone call about a month later and it was Cortney. She wanted me to come and see her. That night we were engaged. It has been almost 12 years of marriage now. She is the most amazing person I have ever met! I am so thankful that every time she said “no” and I was rejected I did not let it inhibit my ability to believe it could one day happen. As a matter of fact all of the “no’s” made the one “yes” one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. Now 12 years later we have been blessed with 7 children. I often hold them, rock them to sleep and think about what might have been had I given up at the first or second “no” let alone the 6th or 7th.
The capacity to take on failure has to be found in our choice to do so. To act is not that courageous yet to act in the face of risk, failure, rejection and “no” is truly extraordinary. We develop this capacity as we continually choose to act with the possibility of rejection. To not let our fears hold our dreams hostage. We can then persist in a habit that becomes as much a part of us as the joy and elation when we hear “yes.” Consider the power of becoming an individual that is not limited by failure but instead propelled forward by it with the greater learning that this failure allowed us to achieve. In essence the only true failure is to not try, to give up, to stop going forward. We choose if we will turn the capacity to take on failure into the wellspring of experiencing success!
Truly timeless principles can never be overshadowed by those personal struggles that all of us may face and overcome in life. In everything we do the power to choose success is an inherent right unless we knowingly surrender it. There is nothing in life, our profession or anything we do that can take it from us. Success may remain elusive to us yet we will have to face the fact that this is what we have chosen. Or our lives can dramatically be different today. We can embrace the 3 Secrets of Success, live the 5 Maxims of Success and use the Tools of Self-Discovery and Success that will help us develop into a person who chooses to see possibilities grasping their dreams and ultimate success. Passion is not enough, we must choose. Motivation is not enough, we must choose. Desire is not enough, we must choose. It is the ultimate test of the human spirit and the greatest demonstration of our character to understand and act on the power of POSSIBILITIES by exercising daily our ability to choose success.
As we draw this voyage of discovering the ability to succeed in all of us to a close. I am reminded of President Kennedy’s words concerning the Cold War and what would seem to be a hopeless battle at the time that would never be won. “The problems of the world cannot be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by obvious realities. We need men and women who can dream of things that never were.” Who believed the Cold War would ever be over, that the
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