My voice mail gets converted to text and sent to my phone.  It works well 90% of the time.  My name however often gets unique translations.  One message I received started with "Hello Failure."  I kept it on my phone log for quite sometime.

Failure!   I have been thinking about this of late.  2009 was a really tough and challenging year.  My investments crashed and my income dropped when one of the project/businesses I was working on ran out of capital right during the panic stage of the economy tanking - bottom line - it has been a challenge.  But I realize not only for me.  Businesses,  individuals,  not for profits, etc. have all had a very challenging year - (well not all - Walmart,  McDonalds,  and some others have had growth years for obvious reasons).

So failure - good thing or bad thing?   My answer - both!   I don't enjoy failure.  And if it is permanent then I consider it only a bad thing.  However,  I can't tell you how much I have learned in the last year - not only about business but also about myself and my  interests and passions.  If failure is temporary than it will turn out to be a good thing overall - again not without pain but the pain will be worth it.  (by the way - 2009 is not the first year with failure - it is just more concentrated and so therefore are the lessons).

How about you?  I could go through the list of people who have failed and then achieved.  Most of them failed many times.   I want to be on that list.   I want you to be on the list.  All of us fail.   Let me repeat for anyone who has not lived life much - we all fail.  Lots!!   But we have got to learn from them and then the next step is crucial - try again, and again, and again.   This is not easy.  But it is something I want to teach and reteach myself,  my children and others.  And I want to learn it from you!   Let's keep at it.  We can't expect anyone to  to be perfect including ourselves.  We need failure to propel us forward.   And again I don't mean that failure is not painful.  It is.  Remember 2009.   I don't want the lessons of 2009 or any other year to go to waste.   Try again (not the same way necessarily - remember we are learning)!  Keep at it!