How can failure lead you to success? Great inventors like Thomas Edison talked about ideas like failing forward. Great baseball players strike out more than the hit home runs, new products fail more often than the succeed. John Maxwell has a book called “Failing Forward.”   If you Google “Failing Forward” there are more than 52 million results.

All human advancement is built on failure

If you are learning new skills, exploring new markets, entering a new sport, no matter what you are doing… don’t be discouraged when you don’t do it perfectly.

Sometimes a toxic environment whether home, or the wrong friends will taint your thinking and cause you to believe that you shouldn’t pursue your dream because you are not doing it perfectly, because you go out the first day and have no sales to show, because you struck out at bat, because you broke on the high note, because, because, because… Whose voice is that in your head telling you to stop. Whose voice is telling you you are not good enough.

Listen to the voice of your heart, listen to your dreams; aren’t your dreams a message from God? Aren’t your dreams sacred communication to you from the universe? Whose voice should you listen to?

I recall scriptures from Habbakuk: “…be utterly amazed, for I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” This is how our dreams are. We may have difficulty believing them: “me the top sales-performer?” “Me, valedictorian?” “Me the new manager?” “Me write a book?” Learn not to question those urgings from within they are God seeking to work through you.

Again from Habbakuk: “Write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run who reads it.”  I’ve always loved that scripture.  Write down those things from your heart and read them, run to carry them out.  Not every effort will produce results, you may fail more than you succeed especially at first, but continue.

As always Kalil Gibran has something good to say: “Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”  This is what we are talking about here at the core of this post is the element of faith.  This doesn’t have to be religious if you don’t believe in God.  It’s about you, have the knowledge within your heart.

Failure: The Secret To Success

Failure. The mere thought can paralyze even the most heroic thinkers and keep great ideas off the drawing board. But is failing really that bad? We get an inside look at the mishaps of Honda racers, designers and engineers to learn how they draw upon failure to motivate them to succeed. From poor color choices to blown race engines, these risk-taking individuals provide an honest look at what most people fear most. Watch the film and discover the upside of failure.

Failure is not an end rather it is a message, try something else – achieve your dream…  Failure is not you, it is a message, try something else – achieve your dream…

Mar 21st 2009 Podcast

“The more you think about this law, the deeper you will see it goes. It literally hands you a blank check, signed by the Maker of Universal Law, and leaves you to fill in the amount—and the kind—of payment you want!” –Robert Collier

This morning I read a post on the Zen Habits blog (btw, a great blog) about the law of attraction: Why the Law of Attraction is Wrong, But Why It Still Works. The bottom line of the post is that the steps that the law of attraction spells out work but the law itself is wrong. If you state what you want, keep it in mind, and take action it works but, he says, the law of attraction is wrong. Well, OK.

But… those steps are the law of attraction plain and simple, no more, no less.

What the author is really taking issue with is all of the theory’s that have grown up around the law as to what is causing it to work – not the law. Confusion of the theory with the law. Let me say this: had confusion of the theory of electricity occurred with the electric light then maybe you would be sitting in the dark just as many who are trying to use the law of attraction may be. More on this later.

The big theory at the moment involves quantum physics and our thoughts actually affecting matter. And I say: “Interesting I like the idea of the theory, but who really knows?” Ultimately does it matter about a theory? The rules work, that is the law works so we use it.

Wallace Wattles in 1910 wrote The Science of Getting Rich. The book details the law of attraction, doesn’t even call it the law of attraction and yet every word tells you exactly what you should be doing to bring important changes to your life by attracting the things you want in.

How can you ever have something other than what everyone else has if you don’t know what it is? So you visualize it, you turn it round in your minds eye and begin to think about exactly how you want it. As you go through your day you allow the idea into mind to encourage you on but obviously you are working and you need your prime focus on the activities at hand.

These first steps will begin to activate subconscious thinking and according to Wattles and most LOA writers actually cause it’s formation (it doesn’t matter what you believe is causing the formation). The third part is the kicker. Ideas will begin to enter your consciousness about how to go about getting your thing — as you get them take action. That is what Wattles describes, those are the core ideas of the law of attraction, that is the law of attraction and every other writer has said so.

The problem is we fill up the pages with all sorts of reasons why things are the way they are to help others relate. It can distract from the main idea.

Here is the same thing again: a girl sees boy she likes and thinks about him. She has the vision and her mind begins to work, perhaps she gets ideas from friends on how to get him, maybe she reads a book, but her mind automatically starts gathering ideas…it’s how we humans work. She gets the idea that she should make her self as pretty as she can and begin to talk to him. So she primps, begins to smile at him, and says hi.

And there it is: vision, the action ideas come, action taken. If she doesn’t get that boy, another boy will find her because she is more attractive and it stemmed from the vision.

The law of attraction is basic, simple, we use it intuitively and yet we miss it for the big areas of our lives because so much crap gets in the way of our clear thinking and belief .

Break it down for yourself very simply and begin to believe. If a particular theory helps you believe then that theory is great, I consider theories more like analogy’s they help me understand but may or may not be the truth.

Merriam-Webster says that a theory is: a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b: an unproved assumption : conjecture c: a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject.

So enjoy the discussion but don’t be put off anything by the theory behind it. Theories are just tools.

My background is in electronics. Electronics is built on theory and when I started learning – I had the worst trouble because all of the discussions of how circuits worked involved these long discussions of the theory behind it, very confusing. Later I learned to set the theory aside and just note what happens – do this and get this effect. When you apply voltage to a light bulb it comes on*. Do I really care about electrons (invisible particles that flow through solid matter) and the atomic theory of conductors and insulators? No, just give me cause and effect and maybe I’ll come back for the other stuff later. So it is with the law of attraction, just use it.

The steps that Wattles discussed, that Rhonda Byrne put into The Secret, that Ester Hicks channels with Abraham and reveals… All of these boil down to vision, idea formation, action. Just get it. Set the theory aside, set the part about getting a boost from the universe aside if you want … This stuff is part of you … it works … just get it, just use it.

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*Even Thomas Edison had things wrong about the most basic laws of electricity, he said current flowed from the positive terminal of a battery and through the circuit to the negative terminal. Now, “We Know,” (wink, wink) that the invisible electron current flow really goes from the negative terminal to the positive. Even if this is true, does it really matter to most people? It didn’t matter to Edison and he was the most successful inventor of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Do you think Edison practiced the law of attraction? Just read Think And Grow Rich.

Always reframe and view rejection as a learning, a honing experience. It is said that Colonel Sanders was turned down (rejected) over 1000 times before he got his first franchisee for Kentucky Fried Chicken. All the while he was traveling around, sometimes sleeping in his car all on the strength of a recipie he belived in.

Rejection doesn’t mean the rejector is right in rejecting you. Look at all those 999 who didn’t take the opportunity that made the Colonel and the Colonel’s number 1000th call rich men. So it’s right don’t take it personally – it may be bad judgement on the rejector’s part.

Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times at making a viable light bulb. At last the bulb lit and lasted and Edison gave a great gift to the world. Rejection and failure are actually two sides to the same coin.

Both of these men had belief that got them past the hard places. You must develop a vision that lets you continue to take action in the face of rejection.

Sales trainers always talk about statistics for sales calls. After a little time you might learn that you make 10 calls and make one sale. In this case each turn down should be viewed not as a rejection but as another step toward the sale.

These kinds of ideas apply to everything in your life. Sometimes you just have to get out there and keep going. Many give up after one or two tries at something new, but that is not how life works, stick to it.