Turning Your Greatest Failures Into Your Greatest Success

8/8/2019 Turning Your Greatest Failures Into Your Greatest Success

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TURNING Y OUR GREATEST F AILURES INTO Y OUR GREATEST SUCCESS

Page i

TURNING Y OUR GREATEST

F AILURES INTO Y OUR GREATEST

SUCCESS

O UR FAILURES ARE NOTHING MORE

THAN OPPORTUNITIES TO ACHIEVE

THE GREATEST SUCCESS WE HAVE

EVER IMAGINED

Written by Joe Tillman

Founder of The Child Protection Community

www.TheChildProtectionCommunity.net



Turning Your Greates Failures Into Your Greatest Victories

TURNING Y OUR GREATEST

F AILURES INTO Y OUR GREATEST

SUCCESS

© 2010 Joe Tillman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may bereproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means

without written permission from the author.



TURN Y OUR GREATEST F AILURES INTO Y OUR GREATEST V ICTORIES

page i

I f you w ish to be loved, show more of

your faults than your virtues.

~ Robert Bulwer-Lytton

Each generation goes further than the

generation preceding it because it

stands on the shoulders of that

generation. You w ill have opportunities

beyond anything we've ever known. ~ Ronald Reagan

I don't like people who have never fallen

or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless andit isn't of much value. Life hasn't

revealed its beauty to them. ~ Boris Pasternak

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Turning Your Greates Failures Into Your Greatest Victories page i

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Never underestimate the experience……………..page iv

Do you have conviction ……………………………page 6

Lead follow or get out of the way…………............page 7

Chapter 2

Lying with dogs really will get you fleas……………..page 9

A glassmaker a blacksmith does not make………….page 10

A work in progress……………………………………………page 11

Be prepared……………………………………………………..page 11

Tools of the trade……………………………………………..page 12

What does vs what does not………………………………page 14

Experience must be earned, it can not be

given………………………………………………………………page 15

Looking back it all makes sense now………………….page 16

One failure at a time………………………………………...page 17

Chapter 3

Helping youself helps others…………………………….page 18

It does not matter if it is good or bad…………………page 19

Hindsight is 20/20…………………………………………..page 20

If I had it to do over again…………………………………page 20

Know this though…………………………………………….page 22



Turning Your Greates Failures Into Your Greatest Victories ii

List of Illustrations

Pictures

Your journey your choice………………………….. Page 7

Faith………………………………………………………..Page 8

Everyone has failures………………………………..Page 12

Within everyone’s path……………………………...Page 15



Turning Your Greates Failures Into Your Greatest Victories iii

Introduction

For everyone that has had failures in their lives and

wondered why?

Turn Your Greatest Failure into Your Greatest Victory

We all have failures; even the most successful person youcan think of right now has had their share of them. It is not

the failures that define a person, it what they do with those

experiences that do. All people in all industries, regardless of

race, religion or faith, political party, doctrine, stature, or

income level have failed at one time or another. Failures are

a part of every human beings journey through this life.

Without failures we have no gauge with which to

measure our successes. Failure knows even the greatest of

men, it humbles the most proud, and it serves us all

throughout our lives. It is the catalyst to end stalemates in

our progress towards a goal.

Failure is not the end, but the beginning step in solving

the most complex or the simplest concern we may have.

Failure is not the end of the road, but one less step we must

take to find success.

Turn You Greatest Failure into Your Greatest Success

Joe Tillman



Turning Your Greates Failures Into Your Greatest Victories iv

Chapter 1

Never underestimate the

experience

" Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do

whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you

are and are willing to work with a power that is greater

than ourselves to do it.”

El la W hee le r W i lcox

We all wish there was a magical button we could just

push to get us to our desired end result. The truth is that

there is not a desired end result that has a magical shortcut.

Not one worth having anyways. Besides, it is not the end

result we should be focused on so much. It is the journey in

getting there and the person we will have become in that

process. Who we are looking at in the mirror, once we have

arrived.

Each journey we make in life is worth its weight in gold, if

we learn from our process’s that we go through during that

journey. While the end result is not as valuable as the lessons

we learn along the way. It is the journey that makes us or

breaks us, depending on how we use the information from

that experience. It does not matter if we have failed or

succeeded thus far. The lesson in our process is the truest

treasure we must not fail to grasp and recognize our need to

hold onto. What we learn from our failures or from our

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Turning Your Greates Failures Into Your Greatest Victories 5

victories is something no one else can ever take away from

us. Once we earn it, we own it, and it is ours.

We put it in a place inside us that no one else can

find. Sometimes we forget where we have put that

knowledge from experience, either because we have

truly forgotten it, or because we have chosen to forget

it. Perhaps it was too painful to relive and so we

stored it in the furthest parts of our memories, with

forgetting it not being possible to have happened fast

enough. Perhaps it has been years since we last saw it,

yet it is still there. Waiting on us to call upon our past

experiences and knowledge to help us with anything

we can use it for today.

We each have those lessons of failure and success’s, they

complement each other. Do you realize that without the

failures we have had in our life, that our successes would be

boring and mundane? It’s in our greatest hour of

hopelessness that the mother of necessity brings about the

change that must happen. That change is instructed from

deep within our memories of what does and does not work.

Simply put, it sometimes takes a crisis and a string of

failures to get us to look in every place possible for a new solution. When we find ourselves in one of the many

hopeless situations life throws at all of us, it’s in that moment

that we have an opportunity. Our greatest choice in those

situations that we will have an opportunity to make is what

we will do next.

The two obvious choices and the most popular are to try something new or to repeat the same things we have already

failed with. There is a third choice to be considered though, if

we are brave enough and strong enough, we can dig up those

things we own, learn from the way in which we failed with




One person with a belief

is equal to a force of

ninety-nine who haveonly interests. Peter Marshall

them and apply them to our situations right now, in a whole

new way.

Knowing them better than any new choices we could

make. We know why they did not work if we stop to think

about it. Simply put, we can learn from the past mistakes we’ve already made and go forward in a new way, a better

approach, all based on our past failures. It’s that old once we

earn em’ we own em’ philosophy.

“If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall

into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned

for you? Not much.” Jim Rohn

Do you have conviction

Conviction is worth its weight in gold. If you truly believe in

something it will come across to those people you arecommunicating with by sheer accident. The same is true if you do

not believe in something, you are still convicted on it and it still

comes across. Either way it will come across and it will be noticed.

People have the uncanny ability to sense when someone is

sincere in what they are talking about. This applies to either end of

the spectrum, whether you are for something or against it, it isnoticed. Now you can pretend for a while, fooling a few people, a

few times. Yet rest assured you cannot, and will not, fool all the

people, all the time.

One of the first questions

I always ask myself is do I

believe in what I am doing?This is vital in the fact that if I

do, then I will not have to try

very hard to share that with

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others. If I do not, then I am doing a whole lot of convincing

and the end result is a lot of frustrated people, with me being

the biggest of them all.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way

So many times we are sitting still, not moving in any

productive manner. This is at most times our fault, for poor

planning. At others times it can be circumstances out of our

control, yet do we truly have to remain still? It is in times like

this that we should ask ourselves, when we can remember

too, what is really going on. Why am I standing here doing

nothing, is it because I am waiting on someone else?

Your journey your choice

Sometimes my answers will surprise me. I would be

willing to bet that yours probably has the ability to do the

same.

I need only to decide if I am leading today, following, or

getting out of the way? Sometimes I am getting in the way of

myself more than anyone else ever could have.

The circumstances we find ourselves in do not have to

dictate whether we are effective in our efforts to achieve




anything. They are simply opportunities to learn at worst,

and at best, opportunities to carry us through to the next

level of growth in our lives. Truth be told, they are one in the

same, perception is in the eyes of the beholder. We simply

have a choice as to how we will look at it and if or how we

will apply it……….

Action creates action, as inaction stands to parent

inaction. We all foster some kind of action in our lives day to

day. What and how that action occurs can be traced back to

our steps taken. We all encourage some kind of growth

everyday and it is the ripple effect from that growth thatmakes our actions or our inactions so easily read by others.

We have all heard the saying; the proof is in the pudding.




Chapter 2

Lying with dogs really will give you

fleas

" The key is to keep company only with people who uplift

you, whose presence calls forth your best.

Ep ic te tus "

The law of attraction is simply this; likeminded people

will attract likeminded people. If we are trying to get

somewhere and not sure how to get there, then doesn’t it

make sense to follow people who have already been there? If you want something out of life, the best way to learn how to

get it, is to simply surround yourself with those that are

doing what you want to do. Those that have what you want to

have. Those that are going where you want to go.

Would it make sense to follow a lost person? I would not

think so if you were serious about trying to get to wherever

you are going. Are you serious about going where you want

to go or are you just along for the ride?

• Wealthy people do not stand in line for lottery tickets, why?

• When was the last time you saw a pastor at the bar getting

drunk, why?• Animal rights groups do not hold dog fights, why?

That is not where they are trying to go. Those are not the

things they are trying to do in life; in some cases it’s the

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opposite. That is not the way they want to live or the way they

want to be seen by others. Why would they?

These are extreme examples and probably bring to mind

the extremes of different personalities. Yet they make a good

point. When we want to see why we are stuck in our presentcircumstances, it may very well be that all we need do is

simply look around us, at who we are walking through life

with. Sometimes that is as simple as walking over to our

mirror. The hard part is being able to face the person we are

looking at once we gather the courage up to go there.

While no one is any better than the next, it does stand to

reason that we are all created equal, it’s just that some of us

make better decisions than the rest. What decisions have you

been making in your life? Are you going to the bar just for

the peanuts?

A glass maker a blacksmith does not make

If I wanted to learn how to make glass, I would most

certainly not go to a blacksmith to see what advice he could

offer. I could stand around all day waiting on him to change,

and to tell me how to make glass. Yet even if he were to try to

tell me how to make glass, would it be the best advice I couldhave on the subject? Probably not, his experience would be

limited and his knowledge would be as well.

Even if I wanted to follow his advice, what kind of glass

would I end up with anyways? He might have seen it done a

few times, and might even know a few of the procedures

from watching other people do it. Yet the end result would

not be the best I could get for my time and effort. Truth be

told, I would not want to waste my time or resources

listening to him on anything but blacksmithing.




A work in progress

True leaders are born, not made right? Well I am sure

that point can be made in any direction you wanted to, yet

history tells us that all great leaders have failures and that

they also possessed the ability to learn from them. That wasone of the keys to their success. Without failures we have no

gauge with which to measure our successes. It is our failures

that provide the light towards which we may see our paths to

success.

Judging someone simply by their failures is nothing

more than the opportunity presenting itself for us to learn

from someone who has been there. Keep in mind though, if

we look at their present status and the path they are walking

now, we can judge whether we should listen to them or not.

Are they recreating the same actions that lead them to fail in

the first place? If so you might want to distance yourself from

them, you do not have to jump off a cliff just becauseeveryone else is doing it. The best predictor of future

behavior is past behavior.

Be prepared

The path to success is simply when opportunity meets

preparation. To be prepared for something is to have

foreseen it coming and known what to look for. To have

expected it, and based on experience known what not to do

in most cases. At least in this example you have a better

chance of success.

That’s how our failures become the keys to our greatestsuccesses. We can and will at times amaze ourselves at our

ability to work our way through what at the time seems like

the most difficult or next to impossible situation imaginable.




You want to know a secret on how that works? It is us

drawing from that place we stored our failures, and pulling

out what we needed. Our being able to sort through all the

“does not works” from our past, and pulling out a solution

for the situation at the time. It’s a mental process based on

past experiences, of elimination.

Each of us has that ability to do just that, it is that we

must have the courage to face our failures, as not just a

failure. We must realize that those failures are tools that we

have earned, and if we use them to our advantage, we can

overcome more and more problems as they arise.

Making our effectiveness more and more directly

accurate in affecting the solutions we discover throughout

our lives. Our problem solving skills improve as our learning

curve generates for us, more and more answers based on our

experiences. Whether they are successes or failures. It does

not matter as long as we learned from them, where else would life’s must have answers come from anyway? They

came from our experiences

Everyone has failures

Tools of the trade

I like to use the example of a carpenter in this next

section. The reason why, is that one of my favorite people in




history was one. Also that it is the best example I can give on

this next point.

Imagine for a second a young man is going to learn how

to build houses. He is young and has no experience, no tools,

and no job history.

This young man has no money for the tools of the trade,

yet the company goes out and purchases everything he will

need. They give him a brand new hammer, saw, measuring

tape, tool belt, boots, pencils, and nails, everything he is

going to need. As a matter of fact, he has everything that a

seasoned carpenter has. He has all the right tools.

Now let’s peek in on his first day of work. He shows up

on time, and is eager to get started. They start him off

measuring plywood for flooring. They have him calling out

the measurements for them to cut the needed plywood with.

Yet he cannot seem to get the measurements right? Every measurement he calls out to the man on the table saw is off.

Nothing is fitting how it is supposed to. This young man,

although he has the tools, the brand new measuring tape, he

does not know how to use it yet. It is basically useless in his

yet inexperienced hands. It looks good though; he looks like

he knows exactly what he is doing! That is until you ask him

to use it.

They decided maybe he would be better at driving nails

for a while, so they move him over to driving nails. He has a

nice heavy hammer, the same as the other men on the job.

The other carpenters are driving nails in one swing, sinking

them home! Before long, this young man ends up withseverally beaten and bruised hands, as well as a lot of nails

bent over and unsafe framework. His arms are sore, and he

ends up asking for a smaller hammer. Thus he has to work

twice as hard as the other men.




He had a brand new hammer though, yet without the

knowledge of how to use it, he fails, and miserably so at that.

Talk about insult to injury!

W hat does vs. wha t does n ot?

The young man is going to need time and mistakes to

figure this thing out. He is going to need a string of failures

to learn what not to do, way before he can figure out what

does work. Does this mean he will not be a good carpenter?

No, it simply means that he has a learning curve to go

through before he will improve. He will have a mental list of what does not work figured out from experience, way before

he has a list of what does, from experience.

The only way we ever figure out what does work is to

figure out what does not work. Each of us has a different rate

of learning and method.

Yet some of the most painful lessons are the ones we

grow the most from. I would be willing to bet that the young

man figures out driving nails way before he figures out

measuring boards. Why, because the mistakes made in

measuring are not nearly as painful as the ones in driving

nails.




Within everyone’s path

Experience m ust be earned , it cannot be

given

Just because someone has all the tools of the trade does

not mean they know how to use them. Experience is

something that is earned and never given. There we go again

wishing for that magic button!

Now this poor young man has all brand new tools but he

does not have the knowledge of how to use them yet. They

are basically useless in his hands. What if this young man

said “I am going to go ask my brother the electrician how to

be a good carpenter tonight when I see him?”

Do you think his chances of him becoming a good

carpenter are going to improve based on his brother the

electrician’s advice? Probably not, he would most likely want




to ask someone that is doing what he is trying to learn to do,

how to do it. Perhaps say another carpenter?

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve

the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it

hard to plan the day.

E. B. W hi t e

Looking back on the point at hand, we can see several

things.

• Experience is earned never given

• Sometimes the most valuable mistakes, are the

most painful ones

• Advice from the wrong people will not help us to

succeed at what we are trying to figure out

• Everyone has a learning curve, …………….everyone

Looking back it all makes sense now

Speaking of painful learning experiences I remember

learning to ride my first bicycle with my dad being the

instructor. It was a small red bicycle with training wheels on

it and I loved that bicycle, riding it every chance I could get.

One day my dad decided it was time to take the training

wheels off. I was horrified once I tried it and realized how

hard it was without them, I begged for him to replace them

before I got hurt! My mother agreed, and I thought I had a

case. Wrong, my dad was ex- Navy, and when he decided

something there was no turning back.

I guess he could have allowed me to practice on grass but

not his son. No, we went straight to the basketball courts,

rough concrete and all. After about three attempts I was

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convinced he was trying to kill me, or at the minimum maim

me for life.

I became good at escaping the crash at first, not because

I could ride the bicycle any better. No, it was because I got

real good at knowing when the exact moment the ship wasgoing down and I would abandon it.

While this lead to some small scale scrapes and cuts, it

was nothing like sinking with the ship I can assure you. After

a while though I got to where I had enough bad experiences

figuring out what did not work, then a magical thing

happened, I actually began to ride that bike with no help at

all.

One failur e at a tim e

It was a painful experience; no I did not have a helmet or

knee pads either. I guess that’s child abuse now days? Thepoint is though, that I learned how to ride that bike, one

failure at a time. I never figured out what worked until I

learned what did not work and narrowed down the

possibilities of what to do next that I was successful.

It would have been easier and less painful to ride that

bike if he would have just told me how to do it. Yet can youreally teach someone to ride a bike just by telling them.

No I learned the same way everyone else does. The only

thing that could have been more painful would have been

trying to learn how to do it from someone that had never

done it before.

The other option I had was to give up altogether. At the time

I was horrified, but now I am glad I did it. Every fall taught

me one more way something did not work. This principle



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Chapter 3

Helping yourself helps others

Ex p e r i e n ce - t h e w i sd o m t h a t

enab les us t o r ecogn ize in an

un desi rab le o ld acqua in t ance t he

f o l l y t h a t w e h av e al r e ad y

e mb ra c e d . Am br ose B ierce

The next move is up to you, you now have the

information and hopefully enough insight to know that in

every circumstance, and in any situation, you determine itsfinal outcome. You can either give in or get going. The choice

is truly up to each of us. Sure you are going to fail, that’s life.

What you do with that failure, with that lesson, is up to you.

You have already paid for it?

We all have a circle of influence were connected too. We

motivate them and they motivate us, good or bad, both ways.

We have friends, relatives, co-workers, family, and especially

children we affect. In each of these groups you are looking up

to some of them. While some are looking up to you, if not all

of them. Whether we realize it or not, we all are leading or

following by example.

Motivating people is easiest when they are following an

example. You can rest assured that your group will only grow

as much as you do. It will not out grow you, which that you

can be assured of. One way or the other, you will see to that.

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• Some folks are wise and some are otherwise.

Tobias Smollett

• By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by

reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is

easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius

We all have our mistakes to draw on and learn from.

Some of us will discover that we may at times shortcut the

learning curve by simply observing others. However for the

rest of us we will learn through trial and error.

Be that a blessing or a curse is up to us. We all have the

same gifts for discovery, and our experiences are the greatest

gifts we have ever given ourselves if used properly.

It does n ot matter if it is good o r bad

Do not fear making mistakes, but fear more the ability

each of us has to hide those mistakes from others, but more

importantly to hide them from ourselves. We are doomed to

repeat those things we have forgotten, unless we are strong

enough to face our failures as temporary points in our lives.

Points that everyone has had at some point or the other.

Our greatest lessons in life are not in books, or lectures.

Our greatest lessons in life are in our past, if we choose to

learn from it. Anyone can hide the truth and from it, but not

everyone can face it. The greatest leaders in history were not

the ones that lied to others or more importantly to

themselves. The greatest leaders were the ones that were willing to own up to their mistakes and confront their

decisions, learning from them and moving forward.

It is to those people that I look too for an example in life.

Humility and honesty, coupled with integrity and courage

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are the basis for a solid foundation of any human being. Lack

of those qualities breeds more of the same and so on.

The question to ask one’s self is this, am I meeting that

standard? The person I look up to, do they posses those

qualities? If not, you may be asking an electrician how to be a

carpenter!

Hindsight is 20/20

Perhaps the reflection of ourselves is the single most

important opportunity for growth we will have over the

course of our lives. When was the last time you took the time

to reflect? To learn from your past? One of my favorite

sayings, I have ever heard, is to do a check up from the neck

up.

How are we doing up there? Sometimes the hardestperson to change is ourselves. We can see things in others

but for some reason, maybe its pride, we over looks our own

shortcomings.

Maybe looking at our own shortcoming is too painful for

many of us. Yet that is where our true treasure is, it is where

we will find the answers to some of life’s most complexproblems. It is in those life’s lessons that we can save

ourselves and others a lot of frustration and pain.

By simply being brave enough to realize our limitations,

and to find out why we are limited in one area or the other.

Why did we fail in that area?

If I had it to do over again

How many times in our lives have we thought if I only

had it to do over again? While that would be nice if it were

possible in every circumstance, it unfortunately is not.



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Yet it is in more than enough circumstances, that if you

truly meant that, you could try again. If you are able to tap

into the failures you had the first time around, you would be

able to engage a different outcome the second time around.That is if you really wanted too. Imagine for a second our

carpenter, and him giving up the first couple times he cut the

boards the wrong size, or smashed his hands with the

hammer. He would have never been successful at carpentry.

Take for another example myself and learning to ride the

bike. I am now an accomplished rider, but not without cost. Idid not give up, although I wanted to, my dad kept me going.

He encouraged me to continue even after my failures and

falling down a dozen times. Even when I would fall and

bleed, he continued to believe in me enough knowing I could

do something I did not think I would ever figure out short of

dying or being maimed.

The same is true of all of us and others. We must have

that faith inside of us that we can do this. We must believe it

and be convinced of it. We must then pass it on to those we

have in our circle, that we believe in them, and continue

doing so through their failures.

We must have the conviction that they can do it, but we

must first have that conviction inside, within ourselves that

we can. You cannot give someone something that you do not

have, it is impossible. You must first own it to be able to give

it to anyone. If you do not know that you know, that what

you are doing is what you are supposed to be doing, then you

will never see the success you or the people following you

deserve. It very well could be called the blind leading the

blind. I was watching a movie once that said “failure is not an

option”. In the context of that movie, no it was not.



Page 23


Failure is however a very real option for the rest of us

here in the real world. Sometimes we choose to fail, whether

we do it on purpose or not. Sometimes we cannot help but

fail. We do not have the experience to do what it is we areattempting. Does that mean we do not do it? Sometimes it

does, and sometimes it means we have a lesson to be

learned. I like the scenario of the baseball player, should he

swing or let the ball go by? I guess it depends on the pitch,

and how much experience he has reading what’s coming at

him, huh?

One of the greatest homerun hitters in baseball once said

when someone asked him how he got so many homeruns. He

said I took a swing at everything! By the way he had more

strikes than anyone else to date too. Yet through those

strikes/failures, he also had the most homeruns! So I say

swing away.

Know this though…… … …… …

Our failures are not the biggest parts of our resumes in

life. They are simply pieces to the puzzle. A part of a much

bigger and grander plan. They are one ingredient in the

recipe that is our life!

You have to have all the ingredients or the recipe is

missing something. Whatever you are cooking will not come

out right without all the ingredients. Failures are one of life’s

ingredients, one shared and required by all.

Just remember you get to decide how much to add, and how to adjust all the ingredients in your life. The best way to do

that is to remember what works and what does not.

That is how you can turn your greatest failures into your

greatest successes.



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Turning Your Greatest Failures Into Your Greatest Success

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