The Cause Of Failure Is The Making Of Success

I've been meditating on the nature of failure lately, as I have had my good share. What causes failure? Personally, I've learnt that it is my stubborn-mindedness and courageous defiance in the face of overwhelming facts. Ironically, these two same qualities are drivers of my success. I push my Self to a brink, then either fly or fall. Most people don't want to live like this, but since my own brush with death at an early age, I've lived recklessly and wildly, carrying a deep-hearted death wish glossed over by verve. However, despite my personal story, I possess the same universal tendency that leads you to failure and success too. A delusional quality of thought is required - based on visioning a non-existent future, then actioning it as though it already existed. Actually, you most likely act that way several times a day. Even a simple thought like "I'm late" carries seeds of delusional thinking within it. Late? According to what? According to this vision you have of being there at a different time from the time you are there. There is no "late" - there is just you doing what you are doing, at the time you are doing it, while imagining it should be something other than it is. You want to shape the world to an agenda so you say: I will be there at two o'clock, but you arrive at ten minutes past two o'clock and you say you are "late" and you have "failed" and you "feel bad" so you say "sorry." But there is nothing to be "sorry" about, because there is no two o'clock to be sorry for; nor is there a "ten minutes past two o'clock" either. Both are fiction, your projection, an untruth. It is something you made up, but believe so deeply that you suffer because you "failed" to live up to your fiction. This is what "failure" is about - not living up to your own fiction. It is the world prodding you in the midst of your fantasy by saying "Actually, the world is like this." And it's up to you to recognise that and move on. Or you can stay in your fiction "I failed, I failed, I failed" and suffer all the more for it. The world doesn't care, it's already moved on. Failure is a way to wake up, it is a way to listen and learn. It is a way to come closer to the truth of you being in the world that is. Embrace it, welcome it, use it - because your success is function of your ability to fail. An Entrepreneur Is A Failure Waiting to Happen [NOTE: This second half of my blog is a paid area describing practical ways to implement what has been described above in a Facebook group with over 40 AT teachers and students. You can join anytime to be part of their discussions.] George Bernard Show once described the "unreasonable man" like this:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Entrepreneurs are unreasonable people, full of delusions and living a life of fantasy. Most great entrepreneurs have seriously crashed at least once their lives, often more than that. Why? Because they imagine a non-existent future, then set about trying to create it. This is what we are all doing in ATSuccess. We are daring to say: the world can be like this. I want it to be like this. I am going to make it like this. The world may not agree. This is the sobering reality of being an entrepreneur: to match your dream to the facts on the ground. The numbers. They really matter, for they are the only reality outside of your fantasy that has any hope of penetrating your delusion and modifying your behaviour sufficiently for your dream to come true. You the entrepreneur are a curious mixture of the delusional and the awake, the dreamer and the scientist, the creator and the engineer. It is a magnificent way to experience living - a roller coaster of emotions and possibilities that can light up the world around you. Whole economies rely on people like you - daring to live the impossible dream, willing to live the unreasonable life. I bet you have a story to share on how "failure" was a way you blossomed. If you feel inclined, please share it big or small. Some of us need to be reminded sometimes that failure is the way of our way… https://www.facebook.com/groups/ATCSProMembers/