Failure Is All In Your Head!

"To try and fail is at least to learn. To fail to try is to suffer the loss of what might have been."
-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman

Most people fail before they take the first step. They believe they will fail so they don't even try. They fear criticism so they don't charge boldly in the direction of their dreams. Most failure is the failure of a person to take the risk and the challenge to create something better. If you are a Rhino (and we all have a little Rhino in us), you need to understand that living a cow life standing in the field of safety and mediocrity is no way to live. Giving up your life in exchange for safety, and security is to not live at all. Do you fear failure? If so, why? What is there to fear?

Change Your Perspective!

"Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" is a great motto and a great book which I highly recommend. You need to change your perspective about failure. Remember, life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it. Simply changing how you view "failure" can change your life.

Failure is a very positive thing. It teaches you how to do it better next time, increases your skills, increases your knowledge and improves your perspective. Failures give you wisdom, the wisdom to make better, more efficient decisions in the future. Many people look at failure as some permanent state that will forever define who they are. The fear of failure at work, in sports, at home or in the public eye prevent most people from living their dreams.

Change your perspective from seeing failure as a permanent destructive force to a positive learning experience that is essential on the path to success. You will not be a perfect success at everything you attempt. Success in any field comes from doing some things right and doing some things wrong. The final product is success created by the ups and downs, the positives and negatives and the modified actions created by small hurdles ("failures") along the way.

What Will People Say if I Fail?

Who cares?? Seriously, do you really care what the cows will say about you while they stand in the field criticizing you for taking a chance? Remember, the cows are scared to leave the herd and live their dreams. You are creating the life YOU desire, the life YOU want to live. Not a life justified by the cows! If you fail it is a very good sign; it means you are moving forward, you are challenging your intelligence and you are taking chances. If you fail, it means you are not standing still in the pasture with the cows! People will always remember your success more than your failures. And people that constantly hang on to your failures are doing it justify their own lack of action.

I AM A GIANT 6,000 POUND FAILURE!

Guess what? I am a giant rhino sized failure! I have failed thousands of times and I expect to fail a million more times in this adventure called life. You are reading this and becoming a Rhino because of my failures. I have faced adversity and I continue to charge, I have taken failure and made it a positive and I have gained tremendous knowledge to help you achieve success faster because of the information I learned through my own failures.

When I was a chiropractor, I would convert 3 out of 10 new patients to a lifetime patient. Essentially, if I had a cow outlook, I failed to convert 7 out of 10 patients to become my ideal patient. But by converting 3 patients per week to lifetime care, I built the largest practice in Pennsylvania. 3 wins a week was all it took to see 800 patients a week and build a very successful practice.

In the restaurant business, I have opened 10 restaurants and closed 3. What did I learn in closing 3 locations? When you have a bad location, close it quickly and don't spend time, money and energy trying to save the wrong spot. These restaurant failures taught me how to better investigate locations, obtain better financing options, perform better staff training and most of all, that it was okay to admit you picked a bad spot or the wrong staff and let it go. The biggest lesson in this experience was to let the losers go, to stop pouring time, energy, money and emotion into a sinking ship.

Pride, embarrassment, and fear of public failure kept some of these locations open a year too long. When you have failed at a project, a dream or a goal, and you know it’s time to move on and try something else, do it! Follow your gut. If it is a temporary setback, a lesson, or hurdle, keep charging. If you know in your heart something is over don't worry about the public, and don't worry about the cows -- do what is right in your heart and your gut.

"Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open."
-- Alexander Graham Bell, Inventor

You Must Fail to Succeed

As a Rhino, you need to embrace failure and learn from it. It is an important element of success and you cannot succeed without it. With every goal you set, you will encounter failure along the way. Expect it, welcome it and learn from it. Share the knowledge you gain from failures and help other Rhinos bravely face the failures in their life.

Action steps:
1. Change your perspective. Remember, failure is part of the game and every failure holds the seed to an equal or larger positive.

2. Get out of the pasture. Mental blocks about failure are preventing you from living your dreams. Get out there and live your dreams. You will not regret it!

To win big in life you need to take big risks, which means you will encounter some big failures. Just keep charging, rhinos, and you will succeed!