Bill’s Curated Quotes – December 2024

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”

Henry Ford

In the last 16 years, I have spoken and written several times about failure. Now, in my 85th year, I am at that time in life where reflection is often part of the thought process of an older person.

I have always been intrigued by what others say on a subject that has interest to me. I was born with a very curious nature. Risk taking, as many of you who know me, has been part of my life from early adulthood to the present day. What I have learned is that failure is part of life and that no one escapes life without failing at something. Marian Edelman said, “Failure is just another way to learn how to do something right.”

In our society today we tend to be critical of a person’s failure at something, possibly because we haven’t had that failure in our lives. Yet, as I said above, we all fail at something in our lifetime. Some years ago, I opined on a piece written by Maxie Maultsby about the four fatal fears that we all face: the fear of Failure, the fear of Being Wrong, the fear of Rejection, and the fear of Being Emotionally Uncomfortable. Could it be that our ability to accept failure in our own lives is driven in part by not accepting the fears inside ourselves?

Something to ponder as we close out another interesting and challenging year.

Onward!