Years ago, a man giving, rather, selling, a motivational speech asked, “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail.” It was and is a penetrating question and the answer is simple; everything! Most people of achievement understand that the fear of failure by an individual or committee is the primary thorn in the side of progress.
Projects, dreams if they are worthwhile, demand that we overcome the primal fear of failure. In many minds the remotest idea of failure is simply too much to bear. Yet for anything to happen, this fear must be overcome and done so with a clear understanding that the great dreams that carry the biggest fear of a failure will be the most rewarding. Achieving a balance takes a lot of good, organized and critical input from others who may know a little something about what you want to accomplish.
In my opinion the greatest advance of the last century was the United States Space Program. The risks involved were enormous as well as the benefit. Lives were lost, billions of dollars went up in flames, yet it is one of history’s greatest gains.
James Cameron, author, film maker, (think Titanic) and dreamer said it well:
“Failure has to be an option. ... No important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk.” James Cameron.
Fred Smith was born and raised in Mississippi and became fatherless at the age of four. He had a serious bone disease that hindered his growth, yet still played football, fought in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine and came near to fatal failure a few times along the way. Fred learned to fly at age 15. Later in life he put his knowledge from the military, flying, and education at Harvard, took enormous risk, even to file flight plans at one airport and landing at another to avoid the IRS. He ultimately overcame those problems and today everyone knows about his brainchild, Federal Express. He knew it could fail, but he was committed to success.
My thought: In the secular world, men and women take enormous risk to bring about beneficial change. Why are we Christians thumb suckers when it comes to risk?
Isaiah 58:11 “The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
Copyright © 2017 Larry Lilly
IT work by Oral Deckard
Projects, dreams if they are worthwhile, demand that we overcome the primal fear of failure. In many minds the remotest idea of failure is simply too much to bear. Yet for anything to happen, this fear must be overcome and done so with a clear understanding that the great dreams that carry the biggest fear of a failure will be the most rewarding. Achieving a balance takes a lot of good, organized and critical input from others who may know a little something about what you want to accomplish.
In my opinion the greatest advance of the last century was the United States Space Program. The risks involved were enormous as well as the benefit. Lives were lost, billions of dollars went up in flames, yet it is one of history’s greatest gains.
James Cameron, author, film maker, (think Titanic) and dreamer said it well:
“Failure has to be an option. ... No important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk.” James Cameron.
Fred Smith was born and raised in Mississippi and became fatherless at the age of four. He had a serious bone disease that hindered his growth, yet still played football, fought in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine and came near to fatal failure a few times along the way. Fred learned to fly at age 15. Later in life he put his knowledge from the military, flying, and education at Harvard, took enormous risk, even to file flight plans at one airport and landing at another to avoid the IRS. He ultimately overcame those problems and today everyone knows about his brainchild, Federal Express. He knew it could fail, but he was committed to success.
My thought: In the secular world, men and women take enormous risk to bring about beneficial change. Why are we Christians thumb suckers when it comes to risk?
Isaiah 58:11 “The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
Copyright © 2017 Larry Lilly
IT work by Oral Deckard
RSS Feed