There are so many things that we can look at to help us measure success.  But what kind of success are we talking about?  Everyone seems to have different pieces to their own success puzzle.  When I saw this quote, it made me think about the fact that the puzzle piece of failure in life is a puzzle piece that we all have in our own puzzle for sure.  

Since it does indeed happen to all of us, one of the best ways we can have it produce positive things for us and our lives is to actually learn from those failures.  There is an old saying - Lessons Repeated Until Lessons Learned!   I know that is right on target, especially for me.  So if we can learn that failure happens to all of us and it's usually all the time.  Then we can find so much value in failures - now we don't go looking to fail intentionally, but we can find something positive for sure in those.

Finally, I think there is power in the fact that if you know these things about failure - you certainly kind make up your mind to bounce back from them.  Knowing that they are coming at us all the time - we can learn from them along with making up our minds to get up from them and not let them keep us down.  Of course this is one of many ideas that is best when we take the advice earlier in life rather that waiting.  ​

There have been so many instances lately where I have been picking up lessons left and right about life, success, leadership, etc.  You see, that’s the one thing you always need to remember – Success always leaves clues!!

For someone like me who has been clueless many times in life, this is for me!  Now, I’ve known about this rule of success for years.  It just seems that it every so often I need to be reminded about it and this time is good as any, especially since I am looking to change some things up in my life lately that I know I have to do.

Lately some of the best lessons have been coming from our new dog Kirby.  He’s not that new as we got him in June of 2016.  He has brought so much love and happiness into our home that could not have been found without him.  Now we do have happiness and love in our family – but Kirby has brought that out so much since he’s been in our lives.  His undying love for the four of us has been amazing.  His energy has been crazy at times – but it has shown me about having energy or a better outlook for life, just like he does!  We are his whole world and he loves us no matter what.  I need to have that for people too, especially my family!!

If I’m talking about lessons, I must mention books.  I got back to reading some books this past year and I got to tell you, I can’t believe I stopped reading them from years ago.  They have helped me grow tremendously so much so that I need to keep reading now since I’ve seen the growth that comes with it.  Reading has opened up doors for me to new opportunities, new idea, new things that I get to go after in my life.  Crazy to see how much reading a book can help in my life and it can do the same for you.  I will be updating my book list for sure on my website.

Being a teacher, I have to tell you that I am amazed as to how much of a student I am becoming again. With 28 years of teaching under my belt, all I can see is that it’s about time I recognize that fact.  Don’t get me wrong, this is a lesson that I’ve had many times before, it’s just this time I think it means a little more to me.

Another lesson came to me today.  I was visiting my parents after I took my wife to the airport where she was traveling to visit a good & longtime friend for a few days.  After a great visit and some lunch, I went with them to visit one of their best friends who is in an assisted living center as she is fighting Alzheimer’s Disease.  She was around when I was born, in fact my parents knew her and her husband (who recently passed away) before my parents were married more than 52 years ago.  It was an amazing visit.  To see both my mom and her friend light up when they saw each other, was truly amazing.  Her friend still has that amazing positive attitude and that wonderful laugh.  To see her after all these years since I last saw her, was a true blessing.  To bear witness to my parent’s friendship with her – especially my mom – the lessons I learned today, and they were many, were pure gold.
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So, please look around you all the time for those lessons are being thrown around like the sunshine and winds during the day.  They are always there.  We simply need to pick them up and use them in our lives.  I think we both can agree – we sure do need them.  Got any lessons to share?  Please do, like I said, we all need them.

"Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again." — Richard Branson 
 
One of the many points that I am seeing over and over again recently is this one about how failure is directly tied into success.  It’s a lesson that successful people have been sharing for so many years and it’s also the message that many of us are slow to grasp onto.

It doesn’t matter where you look in life as to who has had success – it can be in athletics, business, medicine, law, education, etc., the message is loud and clear:  Failure is part of success! 
Most of us look at failure as something to stay away from.  Something to avoid at all cost like it is a bad thing that won’t help us out.  Now, don’t get me wrong – we don’t need to go out looking to fail over and over again without learning the valuable lessons that are there within the failure event.  Yes, sometimes the failures will indeed hurt and cause us problems that if given the choice, we would much rather not have to deal with.  But if we can see the value of the lessons within failing, we can use that to propel us to getting things done that will lead to the outcomes that we want to have.

Another key in this – it’s a good idea to know what we want to have in life.  We need the goals and dreams to go after every day.  If we have those things that are burning inside of us, things we want to accomplish and spend our time doing; that is a tremendous factor that is needed to view failures as necessary to accomplish those things. 

I heard a great podcast this morning on my way into work from John Maxwell.  He said there is a distinct difference with those people that are working in a career and making a living, compared to those that are chasing after things tied into their passion and purpose in life.  I agree.  When failures and tough times hit someone who is just making a living, it’s very easy to see why people give up in life.  On the flip side, when people hit failures, challenges, and difficulties in life while chasing their passions, dreams and purposes in life; that’s a whole different ball game!  Many times the failures, challenges and difficulties are fuel for the fire for building a life of significance and not just making a living.
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Which side do you want to be on?  What are the failures, challenges and difficulties in your life?  Are they leading you to lessons that you can learn and get better from? Are they helping you to get inspired to continue to chase after those things that are in your heart and keep you up at night with excitement?  Or are just like the many of people that are ticked off at life, blaming others for your circumstances and you don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel that at least is not an oncoming train?  With hearing this message about failures so often recently, I know I need to ramp up my learning that’s for sure.  How about you?

“Make your somedays turn into your everyday”—John Addison
 
I’ve has a lot of somedays.  Especially recently it seems.  Lot’s going on around me, and most of it is self-created.  The distractions have gotten in the way of my somedays.  When I saw this quote, I knew I needed to see it and let it sink in, since it was obviously just meant for me.  ;-)
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I have been spending a large portion of most of these summer days just putting things off since I’ve been doing other things.  Since we got our new puppy, things have been a little crazy or maybe I should say different around our house.  This is our first dog – ever!  My wife and I did not grow up with dogs at all in our lives.  Our daughter has been begging for one ever since I can remember.  Well, after a combined 140 years of not owning a dog (our ages combined for our family of 4), we got one in June.

It sure makes life more interesting, that’s for sure.  I’ve always been against getting a dog because of the money and the time involved.  I guess I had to look at it differently since there is more to life than just the things I’ve been focused in on.  This takes the focus off of me and puts it onto something else that depends on me.  It is something bigger than just myself.  We as a family get to rally around and be a part of something that we all can do together and Kirby helps to bring us together more than we realized we could be.  He’s a difference maker with me and my family from the first time we saw him.

But, like I said – there have been distractions.  I’ve been the one getting up with him every morning early and we have connected because of it.  So there are things that I have not been able to work on or spend time on that I really want to do.  Throughout the day as well, it’s been up to me to take care of him and do the things that have to be done.  I’ve tried not to complain as I’m grateful that I have the time to be able to help him and our family out with this important investment.  It’s taken me awhile to realize that I simply need to re-allocate my time a little bit.  The time I have is more valuable now as this is a repeated lesson throughout my life that I needed to be reminded of.  I think it’s a lesson for everyone else too. 

My somedays have to be brought into being todays.  My wife and I watched a news story the other night about a wealthy guy who was attending all of these different sporting events at the age of I think 55.  He had the means to do it and he said that he had a lot more yesterdays than he had tomorrows left in his life.  My wife and I looked at each other.  We know that is true and a very good statement to think about and then do something about.  Actually looking at the fact that we did get our first dog helped us with this thought too. I’ve heard this lesson brought up many times in my life.  It’s time to really take my somedays and make them part of my todays.
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So as I get back into my blog postings, my podcasts, starting my book(s), my leadership lessons, classes and workshops, getting ready for another basketball season, another school year and to keep learning all I can about taking care of a dog – along with helping my family to realize that this statement is for them too, it’s time for my todays to connect with my somedays.  How about you?

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress." — Frederick Douglass

When I saw this quote, there were a few things I thought about right away.  First, on how true it really is.  As this weekend there were some struggles in our house with moving both of our kids back home from their college apartments. My wife and I rented a truck to bring home the furniture and other things that they had with them and moved it all back home into our garage, our house, basement, etc.  Of course the kids were there too – it would not have gotten done without us helping each other.  We got it all done and it actually went a lot better than I thought it would.

Another thing that connected with me and this quote was from my Principles of Leadership classes that have been going on this spring term at school.  Just about all the speakers, movies, presentations, articles, audios, and video clips have had this common theme with them too.  The message from those:  There will be struggle, but the struggle is what makes the journey worth it.  We can’t get out of life without struggles.   There is that saying that life is 10% of what happens to us and 90% as to how we react to those things.

It is amazing to hear and see so many others have struggles too.  In today’s world of social media where many people post things online as to how wonderful things are going, all the great pictures of family and friends, and all the celebrations and achievements – it’s no wonder where this can depress or upset people.   I am finding out that just about all the people posting those wonderful things do indeed have struggles going on.  It’s not even just people posting things out on social media – others are struggling too. 

I have also found out within those struggles comes opportunity.  Dr. Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture) talked a lot about the brick walls in life. Those represent those things that get in the way of our lives, the struggles that we all must figure out.  Yes, we need to overcome those brick walls, go over them, go around them, heck even go under them if we have to.  Randy talked about another angle that I want you to think about.  He mentioned that those brick walls are there for us to show how bad we want to accomplish things in life. They are there to keep others out that don’t want it bad enough.  Please understand there will be others that get in your way.  They are part of that struggle for sure.  He pointed out that some of our brick walls won’t be made out of brick at all. They will be made of flesh, for they will be people that we have to get through or get around to obtain our goals and dreams. Knowing that this will be coming our way throughout life, make the decision now to not let these brick walls stop us. Figure out some ideas now!

“A person is not old until their regrets take the place of their dreams.” – Phil Reinhardt​

As time goes by it sure does get easy to have regular life take over where we find ourselves just going through the motions and losing our direction as to where we wanted to go earlier in life.  The hopes, plans, dreams and goals are still in our mind but have been replace with looking to survive and maybe advance a little bit in whatever career path we find ourselves on.  For many, it’s a career that maybe they didn’t plan on at all that they find themselves in.  For others, maybe it a career path that they have never left and still find themselves on it so many years later.

There are plenty of regrets in my life for sure.  I’ve tried recently to look at them as lessons learned instead of getting all hung up, sad and down about them not happening or more importantly, me not making them happen.  The other thing that I have seemed to get connected with is to focus more in on dreams that I still want to accomplish.  That’s what connected me with Phil’s quote when I saw it.

There are days I feel that I’m getting older, mostly due to my recent surgeries last year.  I got my right knee replaced along with having back surgery, where I have six screws permanently in by lower back holding things together so to speak.  Arthritis has made sure it is helping to remind me about the time that has gone by in my life.  The way I look at it, I sure don’t need to help this process get any worse by not going after my dreams and goals and start having regrets pile up and replace those things that I still want to do in my life.  Age is something that slows us all down at times which can add to the fact that we don’t feel like doing more about going after our dreams and goals in life.

This is why I promote to my own kids, my students and others to get started as early as they can on going after their dreams and goals, rather than after time goes by – and it does go by fast – we feel as if we can’t go after them since we are getting older and life is happening to us and we don’t have the time to do that.  There have also been too many examples on why we can’t wait to go after our dreams and goals.  Too many people that I have seen have died too soon in life due to a variety of circumstances.  The tragedy in Paris just happened yesterday which shows even more the fragile state of life that some face more frequently than others.
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They key is time will always keep chugging along.  It doesn’t wait for nobody.  Like Tiger Woods has said, “Father time is undefeated.”  As time goes on, it piles up victories of making us start piling up our defeats of regrets instead of victories of accomplishing our dreams and goals.  I’m not sure about you, but I want to still have some victories that I can look back upon as being memorable, lasting for others, and the opposite of regrets.  What about you?