A Blaze of Glory
As a kid I was a BMX bike riding champ. I was fast. I could do sweet skids. And occasionally I could pull off a sweet bunny hop or endo.
All of that made me awesome in my mind. It also gave me some false pride in my abilities. I thought I could do things that I couldn’t really do. It caused me to follow through on some bad ideas.
Of all the bad ideas I tried on my bike, the worst was jumping off a 3 foot retaining wall. If I was Danny MacAskill, BMX expert, I would have killed the jump. I am not Danny MacAskill. I am Andy Bondurant…non BMX expert.
My plan was to work up a good head of steam up, hit the edge of the retaining wall, jerk the handle bars up and get some sweet air.
The problem with this plan was the 2-3 inch lip of the retaining wall rising from the ground. Once I got moving, my front tire hit the lip of the retaining wall, I slammed my bike forward instead of up, I was sent headfirst over the handle bars and I flailed to the ground.
It’s one of those moments in life when everything seems to happen in super slo-mo. I couldn’t hit the ground quick enough.
Unbelievably, I walked away with injuries no worse than a few scrapes and bruises.
That, my friends, was a bad idea.
I needed failure then…
Henry Ford said,
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
I’m no different than most people. I hate to fail.
I was embarrassed by my lack of bike riding skills those many years ago. Did I mention I was surrounded by a group of neighborhood kids? More than my body, it was my pride that was hurt.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that failure helped more than hurt me. I needed to fail that jump, so I could try similar jumps again but more intelligently.
…I need failure now.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve failed at some pretty big things:
- I failed at creating a business.
- I failed at an investment property.
- I failed at building a web-based business.
- I failed at working with family.
- I failed at creating another business.
- I failed at making a lot of money.
- I failed at partnerships.
Not gonna lie…those things hurt. However, I use so much of that information in making decisions, planning and leading in my job and my family on a daily basis. Those failures help me do life more intelligently.
You need failure.
My encouragement for you today is to stop looking at your failures as an end. Try to see your failures as the beginning of a new opportunity to do life with more information and education.
If you have a moment right them out. List how they have helped you.
You might be surprised. What you thought was your destruction in a blaze of glory is the thing that taught you most in life.
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