I am inspired and you will be too if you follow this one simple step. Watch the video below. I am not going to say anything else, because there is no need.
Video from Josh Haragarne of World’s Stronger Librarian.
The follow up post to this video, written by Amy Harrison, is a very good read too: Do you have the strength to be still?
If you are not already following Josh then do so, if you do not have him in your RSS reader… you must.
Today I recieved my results for my first Maths AS exam. I have been struggling a lot with the Maths and therefore revised a lot before the exam. I got the worse you can possibly get, a U.
Now, in answer to my question… most people would say YES. Yes, I did terrible, but did I fail?
When I started Maths, our teacher asked the class how we learn. When it got to me, I said “By making as many mistakes as possible”. I did not let him down, I make a lot of mistakes EVERY lesson! But each time I make the mistake, if I am able to work out where I went wrong… well, next time I am unlikely to repeat the mistake.
I have the option to resit this exam. Next time hopefully I will do better. But the only reason I will do better is because I will see where I went wrong this time and try to correct myself next time.
So is it really a fail? Surely, in theory, by getting so low this time I will learn where I went wrong and do better next time than if I had passed this time?
No… I made mistakes, but mistakes can be avoided next time. So no, I did not fail, I just took longer to get the result than it should have taken. But just because something takes longer than it should does not mean it is a bad thing. Remember the hare and the tortoise?
Have you made many mistakes in the past? I am sure you did, if not… well, the time will come! Hopefully you learned from your mistakes and avoided any repetition.
As Paul Sabaj said in yesterday’s post, journals/notebooks are REALLY important! Make a record of your mistakes, review them often and avoid them in the future.
Now I am going to take a look at people who have openly admitted their mistakes and have shared what their mistakes have taught them!
If you have ever read any of Sir Richard’s books (which I highly recommend) then you will know what I am talking about. In 1971 (when he was a mere 19 years old) Sir Richard made the biggest mistake of his life. In fact, it was brought up by Liberal Democrat MP Vince Cable in the House of Commons during Virgin’s bid for Northern Rock (a British bank).
This extract from Virgin.com will explain Sir Richard’s mistake and the lessons it taught him.
When I was 19 and running our record mail order service I stumbled on the fact that records bought in Great Britain intended for export were not subject to purchase tax. I bought the records I needed, pretended they were for export, and then sold them to British customers. I was caught red-handed by HM Customs & Excise and put in a cell overnight. Naturally I agreed to pay back everything and the fines imposed and avoided a criminal record. It nearly killed off my entrepreneurial dreams; thankfully it didn’t. But it did teach me a hard lesson about never doing anything illegal or unethical again.
Rather than just rewriting what I have read already, here is what USA Today wrote about them.
In 2000, two roommates had a brainstorm: eco-friendly cleaning products. They whipped up some samples in their bathtub and handed them out to friends. Method was born. The company in 2008 reached $100 million in sales and is sold in retail outlets such as Target.
Money mistake. “As an entrepreneur, you just feel a desire to just grow, grow, grow and show top-line (increases),” Ryan says. “Sometimes it leads you astray.”
After the founders expanded their brand into the car-cleaning marketplace with a product called Vroom, they realized they moved a bit too fast.
“We ultimately ended up selling the line (to another company), but it was a big distraction from our business at the time,” Ryan says. “There are times that you need to preserve fuel and be careful about how many growth opportunities you pursue, because you burn capital.”
Savvy move. “Hiring a CEO as our first employee was one of the best money moves we made,” Lowry says.
The more-experienced Alastair Dorward helped the founders make better management and financial decisions. Dorward had the acumen “to grow smart rather than just grow fast,” Lowry says.
Now I need to let you know an important fact. I had been using NamePros since august of the year before and I had got a “friend” to join it. He was loving it there and making a lot of money but did not have paypal, so he asked me if I could transfer some money he had earned from paypal to namepros (NP dollars). Of course I thought nothing wrong with this. The amount of money that I transferred was $150. Remember that!
[...]
As you probably guessed, the end was not far away. I needed money and the site was going nowhere, I needed to sell. I decided to sell it on NamePros Live Auction, and it sold for $155. This was no where near what I was hoping for, but I sold anyway. They sent me the $155 and paypal took $150 of it!! After investigating I found out that the “friend” I helped had actually scammed the money! I was not happy at all with them taking the money and I tried to find him, but he had disappeared . So I let them take the money as there was nothing I could do, and I felt sorry for them as I do not like scammers. But this left me with $5, not even enough to cover the logo! I lost a lot of money from this but it was worth it, as I learned so many things from it. Including how to blog properly!
As you can see, failure can often lead to success. So, you never know, by needing to resit my maths exam I may learn a lot more about maths which will help in the future (I plan to do a Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence degree, so maths is rather useful)!
If you would like to submit your own story or that of somebody else, please comment here or email Shane [at] Shane Hudson [dot] net with the title of “Story for Did I Fail Post”.
This is a guest post by Paul Sabaj, a loyal reader of Success Circuit. He has previously written Fortune Favors The Bold.
I often see people who have no idea of what success means to them, when they might have achieved it and what their role and set of values can bring to the world. As we get older we often think of what of a legacy we will leave behind.
Again without having goals and the idea of what you want to achieve to keep you grounded you can lose sight and direction. I often wonder if this was the problem of some of the stars that died too soon like John Belushi, River Phoenix and the list can go on.
When you look at those that give back to the world, they stay a little more humble. The likes of George Clooney and U2 whom while fame has given them riches they also manage to give back to the world in a big way.
Keeping you eye on the prize and knowing what you want along with a game plan to get there is a must have in my book. Without direction how will you know when you have gotten to where you want to be?
If you have no idea where you want to go, anywhere will do. Ok, that may have come from Alice In Wonderland.
When I read all the multiple books on people and success they have all found a way to give back to society. One of the true greats is Sir Richard Branson who has more money than he could ever hope to spend in three life times and yet he still finds the time to take on great causes and is a leader not just manager who has a big picture view of life. I have never read a unkind word that was in print from the likes of the man.
I love the story of Steven Spielberg where at a young age he went and worked his way onto the movie lot and found an empty office where he set up shop. He would go there and dress like he belonged and found his way to meet the people who would later hire him. He knew what he wanted and had the end in sight and worked it backwards to get to where he wanted to be. I get the feeling that the dreams we have in our youth get diminished by the failure of others to achieve what they would have like and they tell us all the negative things that take the spirit out of us and leave you with the feeling that you can’t do it.
When I see the likes of Collin Powel who came from the poor side of town and set a standard for himself that helped drive him to the top of the ladder in the military and on to Secretary of State of United States of America, I wonder what it is in a person that drives them to the point that they finally make the decision to go for the gold and keep trying. I also read about the trials and hard road that helped Sir Winston Churchill get to where he made the top of the ladder of success and is now a part of history.
The things that I see that all the people mentioned had in common were great self esteem, desire, and action to get to where they wanted to be. The old saying of when you find your reason to get to where you want to be the rest will come to you. While I don’t like all of Madonna’s music she still is a inspiration as a success model in that she never let failure get in her way. In her youth she lived on other people’s couches and in her car whiles she made her way to the top. Her determination to get to where she wanted to be drove her to stardom.
In one of the books I read there was a part that talked about taking a weekend to decide just what it is you want out of life. Create a journal and review it often and keep a small list of what it is you want to accomplish. Just the act of defining what it is you want will allow you mind to keep it at the forefront and help you towards your goals.
Read the books by Napllolian Hill and others to inspire you along the way. Just as a spiritual person needs to go to church once a week to keep spiritual direction, you need to keep reminding yourself of why you want to achieve what ever it is you want and keep your batteries charged up. The wonder of books, DVDs and seminars allows us to do just that. Get the journal. Take the weekend and define your success path, be bold. Get around like minded people. Ask the people you hang around with what their goals are. If they have none consider who you’re out with and if they might hold you back from growing. I’m often told of how lucky I am to have gotten to where I wanted to be. They never saw the hard work and the volumes of books read, seminars and tapes I listened to. Define your success so you can be THE LUCKY ONE.
Get inspired and find your why! I look forward to the posts from Success Circuit and love the inspiration I find here. Fortune Favors the Bold. Be Bold!
Note from Shane:
What a great post by Paul Sabaj! It really is true, you need to know what you are trying to achieve and the direction you wish to head. Even if you have decided this in the past, go back and check again. Things may have changed. I know I plan to really have a look at the direction I am going to be taking Success Circuit, and indeed the rest of my life, as I believe there is always more I can achieve! I recommend reading an article written in the first week of Success Circuit which was called What Is Success?
If you have been in blogosphere during the last the you will know this man. He needs no preamble… some refer to him as Britain’s answer to Gary Vaynerchuk, some call in The Infopreneur but he just calls himself… James Richmond!
The questions to this interview were thought of after reading and watching ‘A Blogger’s Success Case Study’ by Maren Kate, so I suggest you go there first so that you can understand why I asked some of the questions I did. The first question especially was because I could see how family orientated James is, I think he is pure inspiration!
Being the great person he is, James agreed to this VIDEO interview! Not only did he do an interview, he did two parts! Though I do not think you deserve to have to wait for the second part, it has such good answers… so here are the two parts of James Richmond!
More Information about James Richmond:
Please comment with questions for James, questions help everybody (including himself) learn… so they are important! Also, what do you think of this comparison with the great Gary Vaynerchuk? Even if you perhaps have even something bad to say about him, I am sure he would really like to know your comments!