Adventurer or Victim? It All Depends on Failure!
Adventurer or Victim?
In Paulo
Coehlo’s The Alchemist[i],
the protagonist, Santiago, a young shepherd from Andalusia in Spain, journeys
to Africa to seek his treasure. In
Tangier all of Santiago’s money is stolen his very first day in Africa. He finds himself penniless, homeless,
and hopeless. He begins to feel
sorry for himself, and he weeps alone in the town square as the sun sinks in
the Western sky. As darkness
falls, Santiago fears this strange place.
And
then something wonderful happens.
Santiago makes The Shift. He changes his mind. He realizes Tangier is not a strange
place. It’s a new place. He realizes
he has to choose between thinking of himself as “the poor victim of a thief
[or] as an adventurer in quest of his treasure.”
As the sun
rises on the new day, Santiago declares, “I am an adventurer, looking for
treasure.” And though he doesn’t
have a “cent in his pocket. . .he ha[s] faith.” He realizes the ups and downs of life are moving him closer
to his “treasure,” his Dream. He
accepts the Obstacle-Opportunities as transformational moments to experience
something different, learn, and grow in his Greatness. His leap of faith will become an expression
of faith, and momentum will build with each new experience. Even the seemingly negative experiences
prepare him for his next adventure on his grand journey and his transformation
because of the journey.
What About Us?
Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees the
difficulty in every opportunity.
An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Be the optimist! How? Well, a large part of it has to do with how we view failure.
Failure does
not exist. However, many people
define success and failure as distinctly different from one another, two
separate categories that have little to do with each another. We either fail or succeed:
But those who accomplish their Dream understand failure is
simply the partner of success.
Failure is something we go through to find success:
Thomas Edison
famously quipped he did not fail ten thousand times to make the filament of the
light bulb. He simply found ten
thousand ways not to make the light bulb.
Edison wrote a story that served the ten thousand events many considered
failures. He understood in order
to succeed one goes through failure, and learns from the failure so he can
succeed.
Remember when
you were in elementary school and you learned, “If at first you don’t succeed,
try try again”? Successful people
define failure as something not turning out the way they expected. That’s it! No emotional baggage.
No depths of despair. It’s
back to the drawing board with another possible solution to try! It’s an adventure! It’s growing! It’s truly living!
Napoleon Hill writes, “Every
failure brings with it the seed of equivalent success.”[i] In the midst of a no are all kinds of
lessons teaching us about how to get a yes.
As a college basketball player and
a high school coach, I always learned more about myself and my team when we
lost rather than when we won. In
most respects, we learned the irrelevance of the scoreboard. We needed to focus
on and practice what to do differently.
We just had to get in the game and give it all! As John Maxwell says, “Sometimes you
win; sometimes you learn!”
Real Failure
Okay, maybe I
fibbed a little earlier. Failure does actually exist. The only way to fail is to not learn
from your failures.
Paolo Coehlo
writes, “When you repeat a mistake, it’s no longer a mistake; it’s a
decision.” As Einstein pointed
out, doing the same thing again and again with the same negative results is not
only insane, it’s true failure. If
you want to succeed, try things.
When they don’t work the way you planned, adjust your plan and try
again. Take risks! And keep trying until you succeed. The only way to fail at your Dream is
to give up. Never, never, never
give up! Keep walking! Crawl if you have to! If you truly want to succeed, double your
rate of failure.
When failure overwhelms, attach your significance to
the activity and not the outcome. Execute
your plan, trying to accomplish the goals you’ve set. Then, celebrate your activity. Always think activity not
outcome. Know that you will
accomplish your goals and Dream as long as you persist, adjusting and executing
your plan as you progress. Make no
mistake: You are progressing!
Edison and
you! It’s the same with anyone who
experiences defeats and disappointments along the way. Learn, adapt, and adjust to be your
very best. Grow at every
moment. Grow in your Greatness, until
The Greatness Revolution grows in
you!
posted by Brad Thomas @ 10:13 AM
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