Every Failure Is An Opportunity In Disguise

Our airplane climbed to 13,000 feet.  As the door opened, I breathed in deeply the unmistakable aroma of superior fresh air that every skydiver knows and loves.  I was about to make my 85th jump in the Accelerated Free Fall skydiving training program.  This time, though, I had strapped on a sky surfboard to my feet.  As I wobbled my way to the exit door, I mentally retraced all of the preparation steps, and I physically looked over my gear to be sure that everything was secure.  The training class the day before had prepared me very well for this jump, and I was looking forward to mastering the skills needed for screaming through the skies on a surfboard.

At around 8,000 feet, I found myself stuck in a spinning cycle.  I was dropping one thousand feet every six seconds, and I couldn't dare risk opening my parachute while still spinning or else I might find myself wrapped up in parachute lines.  At two thousand feet, I was still spinning, and only had a few seconds left.  Thankfully, I had remembered the instructor talking about jettisoning the surfboard.  I reached down, pull the release handle and the board cut away.  I somehow managed to stabilize the spin, and pulled the parachute ripcord.  I was only at around 1200 feet by this time.  

A second later, the AAD device sensed that I was in trouble, and it activated the reserve parachute.  Now at around 800 feet, I now had two parachutes open at the same time. Still extremely dangerous, and you can land so fast you'd break your legs.   I decided to cut away the main parachute, and managed to land completely safe. This jump can be seen on my website under the videos section, on a button called Skysurf Jump. The camerman thought that I didn't make it, and he quickly flew in to reach the landing zone emergency personnel, who got into their trucks and came racing out off grounds to where I had landed. 

Later that day, my skydiving buddies said I should have played a joke, laying there perfectly still on the ground. Then, as the emergency personnel walked up close to examine my body, suddenly jumping up, complaining of a headache, and asking for a cold beer. I know, I know, skydivers have a warped sense of humor!! 

In this jump, I experienced one failure after another.  It could have easily killed me.  My mind was wrestling with panic as the seconds ticked on.  The panic was clouding my thoughts and making it even more difficult to determine what to do next as the ground got closer and closer.

Did I learn from my mistakes?  Absolutely.  Failure is an opportunity to gain greater skill and mastery.  In all areas of life.

As much as we would all love to live an easy life with endless resources and finances, most people might admit that life would be pretty monotonous if there were no obstacles or failures. Evidence of this might be seen by watching the celebrity gossip television programs, where the rich and famous of Hollywood seem to bounce from one crisis to another, seemingly bored of living the good life. How many times have you watch such stories in the news, and thought what you would do to benefit humanity if you could have their vast resources of wealth, power and influence.  How many times have you been puzzled when trying to understand their mindset?

Success begotten without any hard labor or without crossing any insurmountable barrier is hardly remembered even by the most successful people. To compare it with something which we experience every day, we would not value sunlight if it was not snatched by darkness of the night. While no one in this world is spared from ill fortunes and his share of bad luck, disappointments and failures, what separates men from mouse is the individual ability to deal with failures. While some succumb to their past rejections and present failures, some rise above it and strive harder to perfect their processes to achieve success. The second group always visualizes the entire spectrum of life – with its due quota of ups and downs and sees every failure as another opportunity thrown at them which has the potential of future success. This relentless pursuit of happiness and success despite all the hurdles which might come in the way, eventually take these people high on the ladder of accomplishment. The people who are tormented at the sheer thought of failure, past or present, are usually left behind.

What is it that makes successful people look beyond their set backs and re-set their goals with renewed enthusiasm and vigor? Here are some of the ways by which people can achieve this skill:

• Treat the past as over and future as illusive. This means that you have to act for the present moment, which is all that you have in front of you. If you let your past failures come in your way of thinking positively for the future, you would be perennially haunted by what obstacles may occur in future. The key is to treat any set-back as an opportunity to improve the way you do things. Once you start believing in what the present is offering you, you tend to be more focused on making the most of your opportunities.

• Believe in yourself. We all know about the rejection which Graham Bell faced from the scientific community when he invented a new way in which we could communicate. If Bell had given up on his belief and resigned to his failures, we would have perhaps never reached this far as we have today in the field of communication. Failures, negative criticism, set backs are all intrinsic part of success. If you believe in your ideas and can firmly stand by it, you can look at every failure on its face and see the sun that shines behind the barrier.

The talent or ability to take every failure in the stride is an important asset in any organization. It is really the leader's responsibility to coach his employees and team members the importance of remaining steadfast in their approach to achieve respective career and personal goals. Set backs would come and go and would continue to do so, so long as you are involved in some kind of activity in life. There is a saying that when it rains, it pours. Nothing can be truer than this saying, when it comes to being flooded with set backs. Where we go wrong is that we fail to notice the silver lining around the cloud.

Motivational Magic is a mindset that gives special attention to building and reinforcing this type of thinking. People are given the tools to develop a more positive outlook towards life and to go beyond failures with a smile and head held high. The whole idea is to derive new enthusiasm from our adversities. Reaching deep within to tap into an inner power that you never worked with ever before. Reverse the negativity, and let us not turn the whole adversity experience into a vicious cycle where we perform sub-optimally in the face of adversities to invite more failure.

If you have tried hard, try harder this time pushing down all the adversities which hinder you and success could be round the corner. Overcoming the adversities of life can reward you with an exhilarating feeling of strength and accomplishment. While most people run from adversities, the true leader embraces adversity and uses it as a slingshot to propel themselves forward.  Mount Rushmore was inspired by such leaders, incredible men who accomplished amazing feats by harnessing the power of adversity. 

Allow your adversities to unlock your greatest opportunities for personal achievement and extraordinary accomplishments!