LEARNING TO SUCCEED AT FAILING & FAILING TO SUCCEED SO YOU CAN FINALLY GET SOMEWHERE
By
Bill Cottringer


Now that I have captured a sliver of your attention with this bizarre title sounding like an insane paradox, let me explain. I am an expert at one thing in life and fortunately it covers a lot of ground. I have mastered the smorgasbord approach to life, full of intensity and infinite variety, and survived emotional, mental and physical obesity to finally find a few of the worthwhile gourmet meals of life that I don’t think I will ever get tired of. Their nutritional value is par excellence and I humbly offer them up for consideration. You don’t even have to be a fantastic cook to take advantage of this easy recipe.

.As it turns out my failures weren’t fatal, but then again my successes weren’t that enjoyable or I wouldn’t have been able to let go of them so easily. As a result of finally getting somewhere, here is my simple mission in life. It was born from my own roller coaster ride between many failures and many successes, landing me in the middle—but ironically being able to have more fun and meaning there than I ever imagined from the extremes. I now only have to do three things to have genuine happiness, real success and satisfying peace of mind. I believe these three things represent my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow which I have been chasing for 62.5 years.

Here is my simple prescription worth its weight in words:

1. Avoid “sinning” behaviors which bring tears to God’s eyes.

Please don’t over-object to the sin word, I just mean avoiding or not doing certain things such as:

• Being lazy by not using my talents.
• Using negative words that offend and disable people.
• Engaging in anger and violence in the false names of fear and insecurity.
• Recklessly and thoughtlessly exercising irresponsible freedom.
• Hiding behind pride to keep from learning from my mistakes and believing I am the center of the universe.
• Not striving to exercise unconditional love, especially during adversity.
• Failing to enjoy and appreciate gifts of magical moments.
• Being intemperate and out of balance in important things.
• Not practicing total commitment in the right things.
• Being judgmental, superior, insensitive, dishonest, controlling and over-certain.

2. Using my cumulative knowledge, skills and abilities for the greater good.

Here again, this just means doing a few simple things well:

• Knowing what I know and don’t know, especially what I have to offer.
• Being able to admit and share my failures openly in good story form.
• Becoming more sensitive to other people who may need to know what I know.
• Redefining what “success” means to allow other people to have more of it.
• Knowing when to say something and knowing when to keep my mouth shut.
• Being very sensitive to moments of opportunity.
• Staying open to perpetual growth, learning and improvement, especially when I am convinced I already know it all.
• Having the courage to bring conflicts to the surface.
• Engaging in urgent, creative, participative conversations.
• Placing myself near other people who challenge me to be my best.
• Being motivated to understand uncertainty.
• Knowing exactly what I want and why.

3. Enjoying the natural beauty and truth in nature and people.

I have found that real wealth is free and all you have to do is look and see. The things I see that bring me real wealth are:

• Fantastic, near perfect patterns in trees, flowers, birds, the sky, rocks, sand, and water.
• Natural solutions to many of life’s problems.
• Great harmony, unity and interdependence.
• Common brokenness in people that is an opening for meaningful conversation.
• A great story in everyone that has a useful clue for everyone else.
• Commonalities in people to enjoy and differences to celebrate.
• Stress-busting peace and relaxing rhythm.
• A vivid, undeniable and real connection to our Creator.

I wonder what I would have accomplished with my life if I had the advantage of knowing this simple prescription earlier on. But isn’t that the whole point? My life wasn’t wasted at all. I have what I want; I just didn’t always see that. What do you think? Does the title make sense?


William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security, a Business Success Coach, Sport Psychologist, Writer and Photographer from Issaquah, WA. He is author of You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too and The Bow-Wow Secrets: How Dogs Live Simple Lives & People Don’t. He can be reached with questions and comments at (425) 454-5011 or bcottringer.pssp.net