Hello everyone and welcome to my daily blog. I love to write and eveyone knows my life is an open book, so why not blog about it. This blog will be about a variety of topics because I have a variety of interests. It is meant to inspire and motivate, but above all else, just be real. Are we not all tired of everyone acting like life is so perfect? Life is a mess at times! Through those messes is where we find true happiness and love. And is that not what we are all striving for? Come along this journey with me, I promise it will not be boring.
I just started my 2nd round of P90X and its already been faced with challenge after challenge. Life happens and sometimes we have to choose what is most important to us. I started a new job working nights in the mailroom of a law firm. It is in the evening, not as late and crazy as working in a bar, so I can eventually start to build my personal training business during the day. I was lucky enough to stay and work some overtime already, which will be much appreciated on payday, but makes it harder for me to want to get up in time to workout before I get ready for the rest of my day. On top of which, I of course got sick this past weekend and felt like complete hell this week. But at the end of the day those are still all excuses. I still don't leave the house for work without showering and brushing my teeth. Why doesn't working out and eating healthy rank up there as just as important? It is simple, because if I don't shower or brush my teeth, I will instantly hear about how bad I smell. If I choose to not work out today because of this reason or that, no one will ever know or give me a hard time about it. The choices we make or do not make daily compounded over time determine our success. Great friends of mine, Kassie and Aaron gave me a book that I feel should be required reading for everyone I know. The book is titled, "The Slight Edge", by Jeff Olson. Anyone that knows me, knows my favorite place in the world is Barnes & Nobles. I love to walk in and see row upon row, shelf upon shelf of books, I even love the smell of all those books. I peruse all the aisles as if it was my first time and always end up in the self-help section. Yes, I have a problem, I am a self-help book junkie. I inevitabley end up trying to score one of those comfy leather chairs armed with 6 books and a Venti Mocha. Out of all the self-help books I have read, "The Slight Edge" stands above them all. "The Slight Edge" is different because it teaches you how to use all that knowledge.
There is one specific part of that book I want to go into further depth with you right now and that is "FAILURE!" Oh, no!!! The really bad "F" word. The title of this post is called "Be a Failure" and I used that title because I realized after reading this book that most of us are so afraid to fail that we do not even try or attempt to reach our goals and live out our dreams. Worse yet, we SETTLE.....yikes, that is scary! I would rather fail over and over again then SETTLE. We need to realize that we will never get what we desire without failing. I believe we have gone from the Information Age to the Instant Age. We want everything right now! We want results now! We have no time to fail, the clock is ticking. You better get it while you can, you may not have a job tomorrow. Ever stand in front of the microwave and say "Hurry up!!!" Or get upset when it takes 2 minutes longer to get your fast food or coffee in drive thru? And it just keeps getting faster; faster internet, faster phones and computers, quicker drive thru. I do not care if it takes an extra 5 minutes to make my taco as long as it does not taste like a foot. We are in such a hurry that we have no time to fail. I believe that failure is the key to any success we have in life. Most of the successful people we know are also the biggest failures. Come on! We have all heard the stories. Babe Ruth was the home run king for decades, but he also was the strikeout king. Abraham Lincoln failed multiple times at every election he was a part of, but became one of our best Presidents. Thomas Edison when asked after he invented the light bulb how it felt to fail so many times said, "I just found 1000 ways how NOT to invent the light bulb." I say, make it your goal to go out and fail today!!! Quit worrying about instant results. Of course I want you to succeed, but the odds of you succeeding every time at every thing are impossible. You will fail! So do it, "Be a Failure"!!!
There is one catch to learning to fail. Effort is not enough. You need to recognize what works and try a different approach. Thomas Edison did not try the same experiment 1000 times to invent the light bulb. He tried a 1000 DIFFERENT experiments! That is how he eventually had a breakthrough. The modern definintion of insanity is, "to repeat the same thing over and over and expect a different result." Do not be Insane! If something does not work try a different approach, but do not be afraid to fail!!!
ml~donjuan
