If You’re Not Failing, You’re Not Growing.

An inspirational speaker began his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, "Who would like this $20 bill?"

Hands started going up.

He said, "I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.

He then asked, "Who still wants it?"

Still the hands were up in the air.

"Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.

He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. 
Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.

    We all make mistakes—especially those who do things. Failure is often the first necessary step towards success. If we don't take the risk of failing, we won't get the chance to succeed. When we’re trying, we’re winning. To fail is the natural consequence of trying. Babe Ruth one of the great home run hitters but also the all-time strikeout leader said, “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way”.

    Stop trying to be perfect. When you have a serious decision to make, tell yourself firmly you are going to make it. Don’t expect it will be a perfect one. I love the wisdom of Winston Churchill: "The maxim, `nothing avails but perfection,' may be spelled paralysis.” “I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything" (Henry Ward Beecher). The pursuit of excellence is gratifying and healthy; the pursuit of perfection is frustrating, neurotic, and a terrible waste of time.

    The fact is, you're like a tea bag. You won't know your own strength until you’ve been through some hot water. Failure is something we can only avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. "Remember, there are two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you an opportunity to try a new approach" (Roger Von Oech).

    Some defeats are only installments to victory. "Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement" (Henry Ford). Some people learn from their mistakes; some never recover from them. Learn how to fail intelligently. Develop success from failure.

    Mistakes and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to success. No other element can do so much for a man if he is willing to study them and to make the most out of them. "Most people think of success and failure as opposites, but they are actually both products of the same process" (Roger Von Oech). Your season of failure is the best time for sowing your seeds of success. Successful people are not afraid to fail. They go from failure to failure…until at last success is theirs. The best way to accelerate your success is to double your failure rate. The law of failure is one of the most powerful of all success laws.
    
    "No matter what mistakes you have made—no matter how you've messed things up—you can still make a new beginning. The person who fully realizes this suffers less from the shock and pain of failure and sooner gets off to a new beginning" (Norman Vincent Peale).

    "When you stumble today, pick yourself up tomorrow. That's what tomorrows are for" (Janet Collins). Often just before the big success…comes apparent failure and discouragement. "I hope someday to have so much of what the world calls success, that people will ask me, ‘What's your secret?’ And I will tell them, ‘I just get up again when I fall down’" (Paul Harvey). 

    The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually fear you will make one. "Don't be afraid to fail. Don't waste energy trying to cover up failure. If you're not failing, you're not growing" (H. Stanley Judd). When successful people stop growing and learning it’s usually because they became less and less willing to risk failure. "Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end street" (William A. Ward).
    
    If you are made of the right stuff, a hard fall results in sky-high bounce. A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing. It’s better to be a flawed diamond than a perfect brick.