Remember that failure is an event, not a person
I have been through a fair share of failures in my life, which correlates to the amount of success I have achieved so far. It is proven that the more you fail, as long as it’s not accepted as such, the more you will eventually succeed and grow.
I have experienced losing in a variety of ways throughout my life. Losing a foot race, a soccer game, securing a lucrative station while waiting tables at a restaurant, losing at getting a soccer scholarship at an NCCA Division 1 school, then also failing to secure enough scholarship money at an NAIA University, then later on being benched at a no scholarship school, failing some classes in college, failing in creating a business on the side, and then failing at convincing my interviewer that I am a good hire.
When I reminisce on those failures, they were a glaring sign that I am not ready, so I needed to invest time and effort in more preparation, or maybe I needed to take a detour, or sometimes it is as easy as fix my attitude. The problem is that when you know everything, and you believe the world is conspiring against you, then you will see nothing that needs fixing.
Luckily for me, my spiritual beliefs go against the defeatist mental attitude, but actually promote the positive mental attitude, which Napoleon hill preached in his talks and books. I also believe that watching or playing sports enhances the mental toughness, and as a new Dad, I will make sure my son is exposed to a variety of sports. I gained discipline from Martial arts and grit from playing soccer. Lifting weights and watching your muscles develop teaches you patience and the rewards of hard work. Receiving a punch in the face and seeing stars in daylight in a smoker fight in my MuayThai gym made me experience 3 minutes of time turn into eternity, so once you go through such experiences, then everything else is a piece of cake. You say work is tough?! You mean doing some tasks for a specified period of time where I am not gonna get punched by mistake during training, or your chin will not hit my knee when practicing a leg kick? When we learn how to knee, you are not gonna hang all your weight on my neck so it will be sore for a week? How about breaking my arm or finger like I did playing soccer? Oh, so none of that is going to happen at work? Joking aside, the mental demands of work sometimes make you more exhausted then any physical effort. I don’t mind a lot of work and tasks and deadlines, what really gets to me is stress inducing people. Especially, the ones that want to climb over bodies to the top, leaving behind them a pile of corpses. But again, if you can take a punch in the face, you really can withstand a lot in life. I leave you with some quotes to inspire you to keep going in your journey, and to never let failure make you doubt the true successful person you are!
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
Remember that failure is an event, not a person
Zig Ziglar
I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying
Michael Jordan
During my 18 years I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure a ball player will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball
Mickey Mantle
Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that
Bill Shankly