Success has made failures of many men.

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

Habit is the nursery of errors.

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.

How can I fail when I have no purpose?

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Failures take on a life of their own because the brain remembers incomplete tasks or failures longer than any success or completed activity. It's technically referred to as the "Zeigarnik effect." When a project or a thought is completed, the brain places it in a special memory. The brain no longer gives the project priority or active working status, and bits and pieces of the achieved situation begin to decay. But failures have no closure. The brain continues to spin the memory, trying to come up with ways to fix the mess and move it from active to inactive status. Perry Buffington, licensed psychologist, author, columnist; "Forgive or Forget," Universal Press Syndicate 8/29/99

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

"At thirty-seven," wrote one biographer, "Grant had to go back and admit that he was still a failure. The boy who could not bargain for a horse had become a man who could not bring in a crop of potatoes or collect a batch of bills. It was humiliating." Why, with all these failures, was he so successful as a military leader? The answer lies in his character. I was amused when I asked this question of General Schwazkopf, who responded, "I would have failed too selling firewood, farming, clerking in a store, and bill collecting."

Issue # 1...ROBERT CLINTON ON LEADERSHIP EXPLORER: What trips up most leaders? CLINTON: Few leaders finish well. The ones that don't finish well predominantly lose it in the middle game, not in the end game. In looking at leaders who don't finish well, I have identified six barriers that stop them. One is pride. There is a proper pride in recognizing who you are and operating out of what God's done for you, but there is also the danger of an inordinate pride, pridefulness. Abuse of power is another. It happens when leaders operate unjustly or unfairly with people or because of their position and they start taking privileges or they influence people wrongly. A third one is lack of integrity with finances. Family issues, all the way from divorce or dysfunctional relationships between husband and wife or children, are a fourth barrier. Sexual issues are the fifth barrier and I'm not talking about simply adulterous affairs. I'm talking pornography and other sexually related issues. The last barrier is plateauing. Some plateauing is good. If you've been through something intense, it allows you to take a step back but over the long haul, you've got to move on and off the plateau.

One day the horse escaped into the hills and when all the farmer's neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?" A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, "Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?" Then, when the farmer's son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?" Some weeks later the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer's son with his broken leg they let him off. Now was that good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

I was able to spend time with Dr. Schuller before my talk. (He told me not to preach, but to tell my failure stories to the crowd – that would encourage them he said!) It was a thrill to spend time with this seasoned veteran of the evangelism world. During lunch with Dr. Schuller he leaned over to me and said that he had followed the progression of servant evangelism with eagerness. He is excited about the idea and relates to the spirit of the concept. He then told me a secret that has guided him through many years of ministry highs and lows. He said when he gets stuck he converts that moment into a prayer – “God, give me an idea!” Those were profound words that have echoed through my soul for the past several weeks. I have realized that that has been my prayer on many occasions whether I realized it at the time or not. I’ve gotten stuck in many ministry quagmires over the years. I’ve needed inspiration. God has come through time and again as I have prayed that simple prayer and waited upon him. For example, we have had a desire to reach out to the college community around the University of Cincinnati. While there are many needs in the lives of these students, we wanted to grab their attention in a way that they would not soon forget. We prayed for an idea and got one. Give them toilet paper in Christ’s name. As we knock on apartment and dorm room doors the standard response is, “But I already have toilet paper.” To that we say, “Yes, but this is Christian toilet paper!” We usually have them at that.

Iran, at least for a while, had a guy whose job it was to censor films. He was blind. Literally--he could not see. That's just crazy.

I was looking up a baseball stat recently and in the "lifetime achievements" section I came across a list with some rather impressive names on it. At the top of the list was Reggie Jackson. His name was followed by Willie Stargell. Also on the list, near the top, were Jose Canseco, Tony Perez, Mickey Mantle, Sammy Sosa, and Willie Mays. Do you know what lifetime achievement this list represented? The most strikeouts. Can you believe it? Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays. These three men combined struck out almost 6,000 times. And yet, that's not the legacy they left to the game; each left a legacy of greatness. A key to that legacy can be found in the fact that they kept stepping up to the plate. Even when the number of strikeouts were piling up, even when the slumps extended game after game, even when their failure caused their team to lose games, even when disgruntled fans called them "overpaid bums"—they kept stepping up to the plate. The wisest man who ever lived wrote these words... Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity. (Proverbs 24:16) You may have a string of strikeouts behind you, and you may feel as though you're on the verge of setting the world's record for failure. Keep stepping up to the plate. No matter how many times you miss, if you keep swinging you'll eventually make contact.

The Book of Heroic Failures contains a story about the 1978 strike of British firefighters, when the army filled the gap for the missing firemen. One afternoon the replacement firefighters got a call to rescue a cat caught high in a tree. The soldiers rushed to the scene, put up a ladder, brought down the cat, and gave it back to the owner. The woman was grateful and invited them in for tea. After a wonderful time, they said goodbye, got in the truck, and backed away—over the cat. This prompts the question, "Could that rescue mission really be considered a success?" Citation: Adapted from George Sanchez, "How to Succeed God's Way," Discipleship Journal (Sept/Oct 1983); submitted by John Beukema, associate editor of Preaching Today, Western Springs, Illinois

Failure can be divided into those who thought and never did and into those who did and never thought. –

One of the reason mature people stop growing and learning is they become less and less willing to risk failure." -- John Gardner

If you’re going to be original, you are going to be wrong a lot." -- Roger Von Oech, A Whack on the Side of the Head: How to Unlock Your Mind for Innovation

There once was a man who said, "I will be original or I will be nothing." He became both. – Peter Wagner

(After a political defeat, his wife commented) "Winston, it may well be a blessing in disguise" "At the moment, it seems quite efficiently disguised." -- Winston Churchill

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better. -- Richard Sheridan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn-On Talk about failure! This show was canceled during its first viewing over a commercial break! It was on and then it was off.

Realizing that it isn't personal doesn't mean you shouldn't take it personally. If you don't, in fact, it may mean that you haven't put enough of yourself into the effort.

People are known as much by the quality of their failures as by the quantity of their successes. So if you're going to make mistakes (and believe me, you will), make sure they are smart rather than dumb ones. "Dumb errors" tend to be sins of omission - where you are expected to do something and, either trhough incompetence or forgetfulness, don't. "Smart errors" tend to be sins of commission - for example, as your company's chief financial officer, you decide the dollar will go down, act accordingly, and then it doesn't. If you've done your homework, your career (like the dollar) will recover.

Most Americans worry about personal failure--on school tasks when young, on one's vocation when older. But the emotion that follows failure depends on the interpretation imposed; shame if due to inadequate talent, anger if the product of prejudice, and guilt if the result of insufficient effort.