Failing Forward

I get a newsletter each week from Jon Gordon- a motivational speaker who wrote "The Energy Addict" a book with 101 ways to bring more positive energy into your life.

Todays newsletter is about failure. I have posted it below my thoughts.

Ive been thinking alot lately about all the "failures" I have had in my life. Sometimes I think from a "That person is so much better than me" perspective...and other times , its more, ok, what have I learned and how far have I come from that point.

My "failures" in no particular order:

Being evicted
Losing my nursing job
Having my LPN license suspended due to owing state taxes
Not getting straight A's or better in high school- if Id just "applied myself more"
Losing touch with my grandmother who died last Dec
Losing touch with all my family in NY
Not being the best caregiver I could be all the time to Berta and Mrs Downs
Losing my job with Berta
Leaving St Louis the way I did (rent unpaid, left STL3 board in a lurch,apartment trashed, left CRSS clients without a caregiver)
Letting others tell me how to live my life
Letting fear run (ruin) my life
Losing Tigger

So..do all these add up to a horrible person who should be erased from the face of the earth?

Reading that list...no..these are nothing more than things happening in a person life that kinda sucked.

But to hear the negative voices in my head...yes, all these add up to one horrible monstrosity of a human..who should be banished to a cave somewhere or completely erased from the earth.

So..to those voices..I say : Have I killed anyone? Have I truly *hurt* anyone? Perhaps a few emotional wounds have been inflicted by my failures. Perhaps some people were inconvenienced for awhile.

The damage I have done by these failures...is FAR less than what the negative voices have done to me over the past 30 or so years.

It is time for me to start talking back to them. They have ruled (ruined) my life for far too long.


What are your biggest failures?

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Failing Forward

May 26th, 2008 Posted in Newsletter, The Energy Bus, Leadership, Work


Like most people I have failed more times than I care to remember. I’ve struck out playing baseball, I’ve failed to win the client, I’ve lost the big opportunity at work, I’ve had to close two of my restaurants, I lost my race for city council of Atlanta when I was 26, I was fired once, I’ve had a few girls break my heart, I was once a month away from bankruptcy, I was initially rejected by over 100 publishers, I’ve made mistakes as a parent and boss and the list goes on and on and on.

Yet, when I look back I realize that every failure has moved me forward. Every failure taught me a lesson and made me stronger, wiser and better. I failed many times but I failed forward (I first heard this term from John Maxwell). Failing to win a client taught me what not to do so I could start winning more business. Shutting-down restaurants taught me to be smarter about picking the right locations. The girls who broke my heart led me to finding my wife and losing the race for city council led to me leaving Atlanta, moving to the beach with my family and doing the work I do now. I’ve realized that sometimes we have to lose a goal to find our destiny. Sometimes we have to fail to move forward.

I know some of you might be saying, “Well that’s you Jon. You’re just lucky. It doesn’t work that way in my life. You have no idea what failure has done to me.” I hear these comments often and I always respectively disagree.

I believe there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who fail and those who fail forward. We all fail but what we do with our failures is our choice. At any moment we can stop being someone who fails and become someone who fails forward.

As the great, wise American scholar Rocky Balboa once said “It’s not how hard you hit, it’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” If that statement doesn’t sum up the life we all face I don’t know what does.

Through each challenge and failure we must stay hopeful and know that failure always leads to a better future if we have an attitude of faith, are open to the possibilities and trust that new and exciting opportunities are coming our way. We have to look at failure not as a dead end but rather as a detour to a better outcome than we could have ever imagined.

If you are experiencing a failure right now at work or home please know you are not alone. If you haven’t failed you haven’t lived. It’s time to ask what you can learn from your failure. What is it teaching you about yourself and your team? Realize it’s all a test. Then it’s time to fail forward, let the bags off the bus, step on the gas pedal, and travel light. Your destiny is waiting for you!

How will you fail forward? Join the conversation and share your thoughts here.

Stay Positive!
-Jon