Tag: success

How To Climb (or What I Learned From A Pair Of Rambunctious 5 Year Olds)

An important lesson I learned from my 5 year old nieces …

The past few days I’ve been 50km outside of Wroclaw, Poland playing with my 5 year old twin nieces (+ 3 cats and a dog) for 12 hours/day. (Children don’t get tired?)

Being that I don’t have kids and don’t know many people who have kids I can’t say I’ve ever been impressed by them.

But watching these kids live and play has taught me a few things.

Most importantly, to get what we want, we have to be willing to climb.

For a child trying to get to the cereal in a cupboard 10 feet high, this is literal. Most of us have less tangible obstacles, but they’re obstacles none-the-less.

Just like children sometimes we’ll slip and fall. If we get up and climb again we’ll eventually make it to the top.

Is there something currently stopping you from reaching your peak?

It’s simple: channel your inner child and start climbing.

[Video] You Already Have The Tools For Success

You already have the tools for success and I prove it in this video…

Have you ever thought you didn’t have the right tools for the job? Like maybe if you had “this” or “that” you’d be able to accomplish your goals?

That’s all bullshit and I prove it below.

The content in this video is important. So no text summary. ;)

[If you’re reading via RSS or e-mail click here to watch the video.]

People mentioned in the video:

– Shannon Albert

– Justine Ezarik / iJustine

– Eddie Van Halen

Products mentioned in the video:

– Canon PowerShot SD780

Let me know what you think …

[Video] Failure Doesn’t Exist

Here’s why failure simply doesn’t exist…

[If you’re reading this via RSS or e-mail and the video doesn’t show please click here to watch.]

Failure doesn’t exist. Feedback does.

Do you see how if we reframe Failure as Feedback it takes on a whole new meaning?

In the standard sense of the definition, I fail often.

Below I’ve written about some of my failures and you should watch the complementary video as well… :)


On Failure:

I don’t know a single successful person who hasn’t failed multiple times. Most likely hundreds of times.

A lot of people would consider my recent eBook launch a failure since, in the scheme of eBook launches, I didn’t generate a crazy amount of revenue. I look at it as an incredible success.

Here’s why:

1) I shipped. So what if the eBook wasn’t perfect? It’s good, people are enjoying it, and I got it out there. Success!

2) I raised money for a good cause. I sent $1,600 to Kiva. This is going to directly affect the lives of a bunch of third world entrepreneurs! (This comes after #1 because if not for #1 there wouldn’t have been a #2.)

Click the image for Full Size

3) I get a new kind of feedback on my work. Once someone spends money with you the relationship changes. It’s a position I don’t take lightly. My aim is to over deliver. Which is why I write so much here; for the sheer love of sharing ideas.

Let’s look at other examples of Failure -> Feedback:

  • I hurt my arm a few weeks back while building a guitar so I got an ayurvedic oil massage that didn’t end up helping (but did make for an “interesting” experience!). That was a failure. But I reframed it as feedback, found a better ayurvedic massage clinic, and was healed in 1 day. (Crazy, but true!)
  • When I couldn’t get Internet and, as a result, couldn’t get work done because of the ridiculous new bureaucracy here in India I felt it was a failure. I even wrote about it (whined about it is more like it) here. Sometimes I’m dense and it takes me a little extra time to take your advice and my own advice. :) Anyway, eventually, when I reframed the failure as feedback, I got my Internet and was able to produce a crazy amount of content in a short amount of time.

We don’t learn from our failures.

We learn from the feedback we get from our failures.

Avoiding Failure Is Not The Goal

Let’s be clear that avoiding failure is not the goal. More than that, a life without failure is boring.

And, of course, avoiding failure is impossible.

The goal is to achieve success or failure as soon as possible. If that means 10-20 hours in electronic stores trying to get a USB modem then so be it. :)

Sometimes we get too caught up in our lives to allow ourselves to step back and analyze what’s going on. Now that I’ve put my thoughts on the relationship of failure and feedback down into words I’ll have a much easier time dealing with failure in the future.

Now that you’ve read this article, I hope you’ll have an easier time with your failures as well. :)

I’m interested: how do you deal with your failures? Do you beat yourself up over them? Do you get depressed? Do you use them as learning experiences? What steps do you take?

Whoa, that’s a lot of questions, but I’m fascinated with failure, feedback, and success. Post in the comments or, if you’d like some level of anonymity, e-mail me: KarolGajda AT Gmail.com. More important than anything, be honest with yourself when answering the questions.

———-
EDIT (March 11, 2010): This is weird/cool. Penelope Trunk and Dragos Roua both wrote about failure recently.

Choose Your Path and Follow It…or Else!

Here is the magic pill, the secret to success…

I’ve noticed something in my own life and in the talks/e-mail conversations I’ve had with others.

That is, the most successful people I know choose something (or someone) to follow and they do it with tunnel vision focus.

Those who have more trouble jump around from one opportunity to another, or one technique to the next.

Let me give you an example…

How many ways are there to get fit?

Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?

You can do P90X, train for a marathon, jump rope, do yoga, ride a bike, and the list goes on. Some exercise routines may be better than others, but you know which strategy will never get you the results you want?

Acting on one routine for a short while, then jumping on to another, and then another, and another without giving any single routine a chance to flourish.

I have a saying that I’ve been using for years: “It works if you work it.”

In the example above “it” would be an exercise routine.

As some of you already know (thanks for taking action and e-mailing me about it!) the strategy I outlined in How To Spot Opportunity works.

Maybe you stumbled a bit along the way. Maybe it didn’t work exactly like you thought it would. Maybe you had to change something I did to fit your own style.

But you worked it.

And it worked.

Unfortunately, I also got a lot of e-mails with an attitude of “it doesn’t work, although I didn’t try it yet.”

One of the reasons I quit teaching stuff like what I wrote about in How To Spot Opportunity 4-5 years ago was because I didn’t deal well with people not taking action. These days I understand that only 1-5% of people take action on anything they learn.

That includes health, wealth, and relationships.

I still don’t deal well with it, and I wish I had the power to change that 5% to 95%, but there’s only so much I can do.

The power is in your hands.

I will not often tell you what to do, but I’m making an exception right now: Be part of the 5%.

Choose a path and follow through with it. You will have failures along the way. There will be stumbling blocks. You will get frustrated. It will usually take longer than you think it will take.

But you know what?

The pain is worth it.

Of course, if that doesn’t interest you, you do have another choice. But do you really want to be an “or Else?”

Let me know in the comments the times in your life where you have focused intently on something and succeeded.