Successful People Fail First

All successful people have inevitably failed once (and what's much more likely, they've failed many times). Do you believe that? I do. Failure is the pathway to success. Failure is the hills we climb, the hurdles we jump, and the curbs we stump along our journey. Failure is not an awful experience to avoid. Instead, failure is a lesson to learn.

According to John Maxwell, in his book Failing Forward, the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of failure. What is your perception of failure?

Each of us has our own definition of success and to achieve it we must redefine failure? How should we redefine it? One definition: failure is simply unrealized success. You step up to bat, watch the pitch, swing and miss the ball. Strike one! You failed to hit the ball. You did not realize success... the first time. However, you can now step back, adjust, and swing again -- better prepared to be successful the second time around.

Without failure, how would we know success? I mean, without light how would we know darkness? And, without winter how would we know summer? Failure is a part of success. As long as we seek to avoid it, our fears grow more powerful and block any progressive action. We become stagnant in our insecurity. We become stuck in what some refer to as our "comfort zone;" however, I have renamed it our "familiar zone." I call it familiar because most of the time it's not comfortable at all, only common. And, if we allow failure to cause us to retreat to what is familiar, we will settle for ordinary lives when we are wired to experience much more extraordinary lives. Failure avoidance causes us to live uncomfortably beneath our potential.

Taking risks exposes our vulnerabilities and vulnerability opens us up for potential failure, yet our failure is a stepping stone for success. Have you failed lately? If your answer is no, there are only three possibilities. Either you aren't taking any risks or you aren't challenging yourself beyond the ordinary or it's not your time to fail yet.