Turning Failure into Success

Guess what I’ve been reading? Napoleon Hill’s How to Overcome Failure and Achieve Success. It particularly struck a chord for me especially after the weekend meeting with my mastermind group and I wanted to share some of the core ideas he wrote about like masterminding and not quitting.

Haven’t we all got a desire to do, be or have something? Even something a vague as ‘to be a success’. We embellish this in our imagination and then if our desire if great enough, before long, we’ll find a way to start turning these imaginings into concrete plans for how we will achieve that desire. What Hill now describes is something of a blueprint for moving desire forward into success

This guy's an original creator for success through following ‘the mastermind principle’. Its about forming an alliance with like-minded people with whom you can relate in harmony, and that requires you to be able to contribute to other’s success as well as gaining from their experience, knowledge and skills. It comes down to more heads being better than one.

My mastermind group meets, like most I know of, about once per month but in fact, he suggests meeting at least twice a week if your plan is around making money. It turns out from his observation of people who became wealthy, everyone who had acquired wealth have got there through the combined education, native ability, experience and ability of other people. Although you can create your own plans, it works best to submit them for scrutiny to others to test that they are workable and practical. Of course this requires a good deal of trust and I’m finding from my own experience that that takes a while to grow.

And, oh yes, lets not forget perseverance. Guess what stops most people from succeeding? Yup! Lack of perseverance. The problem is, sometimes it just seems so darn hard to carry on especially if you’ve been trying and not getting anywhere fast. Imagine ‘failing’ ten thousand times like Edison did in trying to create the electric light bulb! Hey, at what point would most of us have packed up and gone home? Could I have stood his pace? Who has that degree of dogged determination and sheer persistence? For him, he just learnt 9,999 times how not to create the light bulb and he saw no reason not to continue until ‘bingo!’, there was light. What an inspiration! Okay, I just needed to remind myself about that.

We tend to think that successful people must have superior minds – or immense good luck. Hill says more likely what they have is a sound plan of action. And then they keep at it. Think about this -failure is built largely on quitting in the face of temporary defeats. Lets face it, it’s the old adage isn’t I?. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again.

I was at a StartupsLive business network meeting the other night listening to several very successful people testify to their success and without fail, every one had a story of temporary defeat. And the bottom line is, it didn’t stop them. Hill says that when defeat comes, accept it as a signal to do something differently with a sound plan

“A quitter never wins – and a winner never quits”

Here’s something else. Try, as he suggests, writing this out and placing it where you will see it every morning and every night. Its sure worth keeping in mind when we are tempted to buckle in the face of apparent failure. And then go consider the plan again, preferably in the company of your mastermind group.

Blessings for today

1. I am grateful for the frankness and support in my mastermind group. For some it was an emotional experience, but boy did it move us on a notch.

2. I got a bit morose for a couple of days. It may have been because I hadn’t been counting my blessings. But several sources have been hitting my face that have said never quit, keep on going. And today I acknowledge the universal spirit that shows me the way.

3. I’ve had a major presentation to prepare for which has consumed much of my time for several days. I am so thankful and relieved that it is over and that moreover, it was very successful.

Personal Development and Success
http://yvonnem.successuniversity.com/specialoffer