Better to Try and Fail — or Fail to Try?

Last night I watched the 2007 movie Lions for Lambs with my son, Jared.  In this movie a brilliant but apathetic student asks his professor (Robert Redford), “Is there any difference in trying but failing, and simply failing to try – if you end up in the same place anyway?”  He was attempting to justify taking the safe route; never really taking a stand or trying anything big.

What do you think?  Do you cringe at trying something big because of the possibility of failure?  What if you tried for the promotion but failed to get it, started a business but lost your investment, or tried a MLM system but got nothing other than a garage full of vitamins – are you somehow better off?  Or would your life have been better if you had avoided the hassle and the disappointment altogether? 

Yes, I hear from people every day who tried and failed.  One gentleman lost $11 million in a gas and oil business.  Another lost $3.2 million inherited from his grandmother in a failed retail clothing business.  Research shows that if you are under thirty years old, the chances that you will be fired in the next twenty years is 90 percent.  Bernie Marcus was fired from a job as manager of the Handy Dan Improvement Center, then went on to start Home Depot.  In 1988 I experienced a horrible “failure” in business – having to borrow a car to drive to start generating income again.  Should I have avoided the pain and anguish by taking a safer route, or was that experience the necessary catalyst for learning the principles that launched the success I enjoy today?  My friend Dave Ramsey lost his real estate business and suffered personal embarrasement after trying to become rich through his investments. Should he have taken a safer career path?

What has your life experience taught you about trying big things?  Have you learned to keep a low profile to avoid failure?  Or have you found that “failure” leads to bigger successes?

Disaster or Opportunity? — You Decide

At 44 years old Phil had attained an amazing level of career success. Growing up in a family without TV he had developed an early appreciation of books. Now after 25 years in the publishing industry he was head of an $80 million division of one of the world’s largest and most respected publishers. He knew that being there was part of his calling. And yet he recognized a “growing dissonance” with the pressures from New York stockholders on the bottom line at the expense of product and customer focus. However, he assumed he needed to “suck it up, and stay – out of fear and a sense of responsibility.”His unrest was addressed on a fateful day in 2004 when, rather than receiving an expected promotion, he was given a severance package and the invitation to clean out his desk. While that experience was “scary and humbling,” Phil says his thought was, “You’ve answered the prayer of my heart – not my lips, but my heart.” He says he would never have taken the “risk” of leaving on his own.

Today Phil has capitalized on an exploding trend in publishing – downloadable audio books. His company, eAudioSource.com is a leading provider of audio books and Bibles. You may notice that he is one of our 48 Days recommended businesses. He simply found a new, innovative and fitting opportunity with even more potential for both time freedom and income than anything he had experienced in previous positions. In place of the challenges of a traditional publishing house, his “store” is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no employees, no physical inventory, and no limits to expansion. He is using every bit of his background, his valuable relationships and his unique expertise. He is still in publishing and, more importantly, is still fulfilling his same mission and calling in his life.

What a great example of taking one of those unexpected yet inevitable transitions that life brings us and using it as a springboard for even greater success – personally, in relationships and in creating balanced, fulfilling, purposeful and profitable work. Many of you are walking through similar transitions right now. Was losing your job or business a tragedy or a blessing? Are you expecting to use your background to create a more fulfilling new season in your life – or are you expecting less? Remember the Biblical truth: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Check out Phil’s special offer for 48 Days members and readers of No More Mondays for The Word of Promise Audio Bible. You’ll hear the scripture come alive with readings by well know actors such as Jim Caviezel (Jesus in the Mel Gibson’s Passion movie), Richard Dreyfus, Lou Gossett Jr., Michael Smith, Rebecca St. James and others.

Creativity — Enhanced or Numbed?

Yesterday in my Wednesday morning Eagles Group we were discussing the rapid changes in technology.  Some of the guys in this reading/brainstorming group now come in with their electronic readers rather than carrying the physical book.  And they may have their entire library in this one device.  Personally I still like the look and feel of a “real” book but others are telling me I’m nothing but a dinosaur.

 

Here is a picture of my youngest granddaughter (Clara Isabel) – who turned ONE last Monday.  See what she has in her hand?  It’s the Sansa Shaker MP3 player Joanne and I got her.  Her parents can load her favorite 125 songs in her own digital player – at one year old!  When she shakes it, the next song begins to play.  After just a couple of days she knows how to stop, play and advance at will.

 

When I was one year old we didn’t have a radio or a TV in the house.  By the time I was about five I could make music by blowing on a piece of grass held between my hands.  I guess things have changed.  Of course I know my granddaughter is brilliant beyond description — yet this gives me pause.  Are these digital “advances” taking us forward or causing us to perhaps miss our own creativity?  Do we risk numbing Clara’s imagination as we spoil her rotten?