Friday, November 7, 2008

Success in Failure in Success...

A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed--I well know. For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself. - Georges Clemenceau

You know, there really isn't a chance of success, of great things, without risk. Risk, whether fortunately or unfortunately, walks hand-in-hand with the possibility of failure. And while this is frightening enough for many people to not attempt greatness, the ideas that can be taught from failure are just as important as the successes.

Consider Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and others. If it weren't for embracing failure, accepting all possibilities, they could not become who they did become.

What if no one stepped outside of the box of conventional thinking, what if Houdini never attempted escape, if George Eastman had never acted on his vision, if Martin Luther King had never had his "Dream"? Would another have come along to fill these voids? There is no guarantee of that. And what would history have said in that place? One dares imagine.

It is in attempting a greatness beyond yourself that you prove who you truly are. And while the failures that occur in those attempts will be very real, they only keep you down if you choose to let them. There is just as much character to build in the failing as the succeeding. And of course, the successes that follow failures are more true, more heart-felt. And they are always a step down that unpaved path that others will follow.

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