X420 Discussion Session #37  How to Be a Complete and Utter Failure in Life, Work and Everything. 1 The Ultimate Failure Manual 2 About the Author Steve McDermott is acknowledged as one of the top motivational speakers in the U.K. and Europe. He specializes in helping people develop new ways of thinking. 3 In Steve’s Introduction He ends his introductory remarks by wishing us every success on our journey to becoming a total failure. Here is what he wrote…. 4 The Good News Is…. You may already have a head start on the road to failure 5 Results of a Recent Survey of People 10% thought they would be better off dead. 25% could see no hope for the future. 33% described themselves as downright miserable most of the time. 6 We can’t cover all 39 ½ steps, so….. I’ve selected what I think are the 10 most important ones because I really believe these 10 alone will set you on the right path to failure. But, if you want to be absolutely sure, you should buy the book. 7 Step 1—Per Steve DON’T DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT. BUT IF YOU DO DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT, DON’T THINK ABOUT WHY YOU WANT IT. AND IF YOU DECIDE WHY YOU WANT IT, COMMIT TO BELIEVING YOU CAN’T HAVE IT. 8 WHAT DOES SUCCESS MEAN TO YOU? Winston Churchill thought that success was the “ability of going from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm”. Earl Nightingale thought success was a journey, not a destination. He said the fun was as much in the traveling as it was in the arriving. 9 Step 2 in our quest for failure: “DON’T DO THINGS ON PURPOSE, AS A COMPLETE LACK OF PURPOSE WILL DO MUCH TO AID YOUR ATTEMPTS AT FAILURE.” 10 Steve calls this: “The four building blocks of failure” From Page 10 of Steve’s book 11 Is dumb luck better then Values-Vision-Purpose-Goals? Garrison Keillor said: “Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have it, you may be smart enough to see it is what you wanted had you known.” 12 Steve’s Step 6 DON’T HAVE ANY GOALS Goals will give you focus, especially if you put them in writing. The absence of goals will give you the opportunity to kind of drift along from job to job, from relationship to relationship, from whatever to whatever. 13 Steve’s Step 8 DON’T PLAN YOUR PRIORITIES How do we prioritize our time? Well, we usually develop categories, like: Urgent and Important Important but not Urgent Urgent but not Important Not Important not Urgent 14 This is Steve’s Recommendation Steve puts it this way: “Remember a decision to do nothing is still a decision. You must continue to sit back, make yourself totally unaccountable and irresponsible, and wait for someone else to show up, possibly your folks, your significant other, your rich Uncle, to bail you out and make things better.” 15 Steve’s Step 18 DON’T CHANGE YOUR BELIEFS Per Steve, “Did you pop out of the womb with your beliefs already hard-wired?” Hardly. It’s a fact----refusal to change your attitudes and/or your beliefs guarantees your ultimate failure. 16 Steve’s Step 20 “DON’T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE AND RESULTS.” Which category do you fit in? 1. Those who make it happen 2. Those who watch what happens 3. Those who say, ‘what happened’? 17 Step 22 DON’T EXPAND YOUR COMFORT ZONE Per Steve on Page 83: “It’s obvious that if you are going to be a real failure, it’s really important to fear success.” 18 Step 24 DON’T PUT THINGS IN BEFORE YOU TRY TO TAKE THEM OUT I call it “cramming.” Steve gives the example of the farmer who “instead of planting his crops at the right time and nurturing them, simply stuck them in the ground right before they were due for harvest.” 19 SO… WHAT KIND OF A CROP CAN THE FARMER EXPECT? 20 Step 32 Don’t stop thinking only about money, money, money. 21 AS STEVE SAYS: “For the serious student of failure you must forget that wealth isn’t just about money….just concentrate on material things like, cars, houses, boats or other objects. This is guaranteed to pull you away from feeling the way you want to----especially when you get some stuff and it still doesn’t make you happy.” 22 And last but not least I want to embellish the road to failure with one of my own: GIVE UP! 23 BOB’S ADVICE FOR FAILURE Be resigned to your fate—Don’t fight back—Don’t pick yourself off the floor and try again—Just live from paycheck to paycheck, as T.S. Eliot said, in “quiet desperation”—Don’t maintain a high level of wonder and joy in being alive. 24 FAIL IS A 4-LETTER WORD, AND IS THE ULTIMATE “F” WORD 25 5 TOP REASONS WHY PEOPLE FAIL AT ACHIEVING THEIR GOALS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. INACTION FEAR POOR INTERNAL PROGRAMMING BAD ENVIRONMENT GIVE UP TOO EARLY 26 A wise person once said “You never really lose until you give up trying” 27 Let’s talk about FAILURE.  Joey Green, in his book “The Road to Success is Paved With Failures”  “If at first you don’t succeed, don’t be surprised or take it personally. Failure is simply a minor stumbling block on the road to success.” 28 It’s called………..  KAKORRAPHIAPHOBIA 29 “Take Pride in Your Failures…. ....because you can’t possibly succeed unless you have the courage to fail.” 30 To overcome your fears       Take action. Persist. Don’t take failure personally. Do things differently. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Learn from it. 31 Famous Failures     Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team. Barbra Streisand’s broadway debut opened and closed on the same night. Walt Disney’s first cartoon production company went bankrupt. Steven Spielberg was not accepted at the UCLA film school due to his lousy grades. 32 More Famous Failures   Fred Smith, founder of Federal Express, received a “C” grade at Yale where he outlined a plan for overnight delivery. John Girsham’s first novel was rejected by 16 agents and a dozen publishers. 33 Bonus Step 39 1/2 Remember Caesar who said to his soldiers, “You better win because I’ve burned the boats.” So 39 ½ simply says Don’t ever burn your boats. Instead, be half hearted in all your endeavors—and don’t stop believing in the “myth” of security. 34 And now I want to end this with an upbeat story of failure/success. Anyone ever hear of a person by the name of Gerald Irwin Elovitz? 35 So, girls and boys, why did I end this discussion with the Building #19 story?? ….It’s to understand that life is not a seamless progression of happy times, of nothing ever going wrong, of never making stupid mistakes, of never saying something that you wished you had never said, of never having experienced failure. 36 So maybe this famous Chinese saying is worth remembering. “Shi pai cheng gong zhi mu.” Which translates “Failure is the Mother of Success” 37 Evaluation Questions a. Strongly agree b. Agree c. Disagree d. Strongly disagree e. Don’t know 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. I found the presentation of material easy to understand. This session increased my knowledge on the subject presented. I will be able to use some of the information from this session in the future. The presenter was well prepared for this session. The presentation should be repeated in the future. 38