Glorious Failure

A Bridge Too Far

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I don’t get to the movies much so I haven’t got a lot of memories of too many of them. But back in 1977 I went to see a war picture called “A bridge too far“. I don’t remember why I want because I don’t really like war pics.

It had a lot of great actors in it though. Guys like Michael Caine, James Caan, and the famous actor of  the Bond movies 007 Sean Connery.  This was a true story which took place in 1944 in the middle of the second world war.  It is known in history as “operation Market Garden”.

The Allies wanted to finish the war early and so poured everything into this operation. It didn’t go well. Not well at all.

Allied paratroops land in Holland 1944
Allied paratroops land in Holland 1944

The German forces were stronger than anticipated and in the end it was declared an “Allied operational failure”.  Now we know it was the worst in history with over 17,000 casualties. One of the bridges they were trying to capture was just too darn far.

Kind a bit-off-more-than-we-can-chew type of thing.

Ever have one of those? I have, and it used to stress me out to the nines. It can do a lot of damage to your mindset that’s for sure.

Lucky I took this a long time ago and now I get an automatic buffering effect whenever a bad turn happens. It’s still not a cake-walk but it allows me to stay on track.  A lot better than the alternative.

More power to you.

A Bridge Too Far

Failure is our friend.

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Chart showing ups and dows in progression
Failures are an integral part of all success

You know I have been leaning lately to the fact that failure has tons to do with how we arm our mindset from the strain future failures.  It always looks like failure is getting the bad wrap of causing all the collateral damage when it really plays an important role in the production of all of our success events.

Today, let’s give failure an even portion of our appreciation. I Know that it seems to hurt us but I’ve come to the point where I now realize the truth.

Failure is our friend. Success our hero.

I’ll coin this:

Compared to success a failure is much more fulfilling. At least after I have one I don’t want another soon after.

More power to you

…David

Failure: Like the lemon tree.

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Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

Lemon Tree – Lyrics by Peter, Paul, and Mary (Popular folk-singing group of the 1960’s)

Lemon tree with fruit

If you lived, like I did in the era of the 60’s, you would quickly recognize these lyrics as belonging to the popular folk-singing group Peter, Paul, and Mary.

I came across this song on YouTube recently and I thought how relevant it is – in a reverse sort of way – to failure.

We all know only too well that unlike the lemon tree failure is not so pretty.

In fact it really sucks.

It hurts our heads and ruins our day and yet… and yet, I’ve come to understand that its “fruit” is so masterfully designed as a portal to higher learning that it’s now become, and in reality has always been, essential if any of us are to reach any success in our lives at all.

Mickey Rooney, the acclaimed actor whose career spans over 75 years, said: “You always pass failure on the way to success”.

I feel like I’ve passed a lot of failure in my life. So perhaps I, like a lot of folks, have a love/hate relationship with failure. I’ve come to know it well. Thirty years of trying and falling short in my efforts to bring my radical theories about human motivation and empowerment to you and have left me with no choice but to press on every day and learn to do it better.

It’s a matter of mindset.

Hasn’t your life been like this? Hasn’t it been like this for almost everyone you know?

Take a close look at it. You’ve had successes. But every one of them has undoubtedly been preceded by a failure. Some big some small but a foundation of failure is what lies beneath all achievement.

Like the roots of a fruit tree.

More power to you all.