In a world of a failing economy, child killings, travesties and terrible sadness it seems that it’s harder than ever to find that inner strength to overcome road blocks, to overcome those ugly personal failures that have previously prevented us from achieving our true potential and truly rising to success. It’s all about the road blocks, the proverbial dams, the towering walls….so how can we do it, how can we move forward to overcome them, no, how can we CONQUER them?
In one word: Fail.
This week, I’ve been challenged with the theme of failure, through personal reflection, debates and discussions. I have been making plans and preparing to launch out into my fourth business (ok, 5th, if you count the “home baked goodies for school kids” biz I started for busy mom’s last year that cost me $8.00 & lasted about 4 hours). Anyway, this new venture this month has made me wake up and smell the not-so-rosy odor of all my past mistakes. And trust, it’s not a pleasant aroma.
Most of my “deep-thoughts-with-Jenn-Hudson” (insert the Jack Handy SNL from the 90′s flashback) begin piping into my brain each morning within the first 5 minutes of waking and continue mulling during my 20 minute shower prayer time. I began thinking back over all of my own personal “been there done that” moments of the past decade and each of the tried and failed opportunities which appeared to be a crystal clear river of success panned out to be more like a mine-field explosion of our personal finances.
The reality is that maybe it was actually a crystal river, or simply a sweet little brook that could have brought the proverbial stream of additional income, the stream of life giving success and dream realizations into our lives but something happened each time that has seemed to clog up the source.
It’s the same “dam wall” that we have been encountering our entire lives. (LOL – i.e. Vegas Vaction) The road blocks, have you, that my insides have been screaming over the past 3 weeks of it’s impending time to scale.
So today I humbly look back and I tear down my pride of saying, “well, I made a little money” or “Oh well, whatever.” No. I’m taking inventory. It’s a nasty ugly sight, but I’m going down to the mind field, (yes, mind) and I’m searching through the jungle of mistakes to find out in me, through my Savior Jesus Christ, who conquers all fear and doubt, what it is that keeps damming up my stream. It’s there. It’s the same thing. It’s in everyone. It’s in EVERY failure.
I realized like a movie trailer of conversations going off in my mind, how many people in my life that have shared their deepest most personal, deep down desire or dream for something big. The Dream that does not bring income into their life, but cost more MONEY than they have actually ever seen in their entire life. Dreams of building businesses, houses, ministries, dreams of changing entire cultural economies with humanitarian aid, dreams of traveling to destinations that they can’t even pronounce, dreams of reaching masses of people, millions of people with just ONE dream. As the deep-voice-over man in my head kept rehearsing the multiple people in my life who have shared their dreams, I realized that none of them have taken one step to actually step out and achieve that big dream. I actually don’t know any one in my life like Richard Branson, Bill Gates or Donald Trump.
Dad talked to me this week about failure and how strongly Thomas Edison believed in Failure, yes, Failure. And he also reached about it today in service. Here’s what Mr. Edison, save, the INVENTOR of the LIGHT BULB has to say about it…
Overcoming Failure:
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
Friendship:
I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world.
Funny:
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
Overcoming Failure:
Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Perseverance, Persistence:
Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.
Funny:
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Overcoming Failure:
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure.
~~Edison’s words ring true today. If you knew you would have to try something TEN THOUSAND ways before making ten thousand dollars would you do it? Would you allow yourself to be susceptible to the 1st failure? the 2nd? the 42nd? the 700th? the 4,332nd? the 9,997th time? Easy to console people and say with a pat on the back, that even Edison thought 10,000 times of failure really meant success. But what did Job’s wife say about it? She said, it was too difficult a thing – just quit – we can’t take any more failure. Job could have quit in the bottom of the ninth, tired and fatigued only one hit under the opponent, but he remained in the game. He said I think I’ll go one more round.
If more people began speaking and acting like Edison than speaking and acting like Job’s wife, even if we didn’t know, or really see that thee could maybe, just possibly be a way that this person MIGHT succeed. When we lift our brother up and encourage them to keep on pressing up the wall, keep on clearing the debris and tearing down to PRESS, to FORGE to COURAGE their way to success…maybe, just possibly we could reach our dreams and change our life, maybe even our entire national economic situation!
Yes, I’m believing and speaking THAT big today. And I’m heading out there with a mind set to do it just ONE more time…getting ONE STEP closer to Edison’s big 10k.
(P.S. if you wanna go there with me, or if you simply need to hear someone like me, tell you personally, that you can do it, email me, and I will share my belief with you RIGHT NOW.)
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