Failure is something we all face in our lives.  I’ve sure had my share.  I remember in the mid 1990s, I had worked myself all the way from a sales person to Marketing Director to COO of a thriving company – only to discover that I really did not like that position.  So I did something radical.  I decided to quit this very secure job and start my own advertising based business.  It was an original idea in an industry I was very familiar with – a business magazine mailed to local business owners around my community.  A great idea plus my hard work ethic – I was sure would work.

Both my wife and I put everything we had, financially and emotionally into this idea.  It was very exciting to see how fast we acquired our first (and last) 30 clients!  Within a couple months we had a real magazine!  Clients were getting fantastic results.  There was only one small problem…though clients were excited about the return they were getting (one even said it was “the only advertising that ever worked”), some still had financial problems and couldn’t continue on a consistent basis.  Bottom line – we eventually ran out of money.  Then, on top of having to close down the magazine, we even had to hawk our 8 year old cars just to pay postage for the last mailing!!

I was devastated…my dream had died.  I remember how depressed I was.  I gave it my all and it was not enough.  I had no job, no money, and worst of all – a seriously damaged sense of confidence.

Maybe, that’s were you are now.

I had only questions…no answers.  I asked God the usual questions …why?  Why me?  How could you allow me to be so humiliated?  Why did you let this happen?

It took another 2 months for me to hit the real bottom when I had to raid our earthquake kid preparedness kit for quarters…we were that broke.  Until then, I was still holding on to a few shreds of pride.  I didn’t want to let them go, believing that somewhere within myself I could “make it happen.”  Once that last fingernail on the cliff ripped and I totally let go, something amazing happened.  Some of our friends from church prayed for me and I got to the point where I said…”Lord, you are my provider…You are my lord…in You I trust.  Whatever you want to do with me is fine.”  It wasn’t like I didn’t pray before…I did…a lot.  But there is a big difference when you finally completely let go and repent of all anger, unforgiveness, resentment, pride, etc.

A week later, totally out of the blue and not because of anything I did, I received a call from a stranger offering me the best job I’d ever had.  An old friend who I hadn’t talked with in ears referred me.  It was nothing short of a miracle…just the way it happened…it was eerie.

Looking back, I realized that I just had gotten ahead of God…like I do sometime.  Lesson – it’s wise to seek his counsel and wait on the Lord!

I hope my story has given you hope and some direction.  It’s never wrong to seek God, before and or after failure.  He is always ready to respond.  Frankly, I don’t know how people cope without God…I guess that’s why people do drugs, take pills or drink alcohol.  There is no doubt in my mind that God is the better choice…he brings true and lasting healing and recovery from failure to success.

How to prepare for success!

Be Teachable – Become the best at what you’re doing.  Learn everything you can about your industry, business opportunity, marketing and more.   You need to invest time to learn about your business, marketing and more…every day.  25% of your time should be spent on training.   Make sure you learn one thing at a time.  See my blog about Marketing Paralysis.

Work On Your Attitude – This actually takes work.  You are what you read they say…or garbage in garbage out.  What do they mean?  Our minds are amazing.  You can literally change your outlook on life and how you feel about life in general by changing your thoughts, reading good books (like the magic of thinking big, the bible and other books like it) ,working on your self affirmations , etc which will help you become a better you.  Check out some sections on my other website that talks about “succeeding in your home based business” and an area called “personal development“.

Set Goals – Setting goals is key to success.  We all need direction…a plan of attack as they say.   Some people are afraid to set goals because they are afraid of failure.   The key is to set small goals that are stepping stones.  Making a single call might be a goal at the beginning if you’re afraid of the phone.   If you don’t like reading, you should make it a goal to just read one page or one chapter per day…you’ll see, it wil get easier and easier.  Achieving big goals is just the result of achieving many little goals.   Just take it one step at a time.  Check out my article on goal setting and my video on goal setting.

Work Hard – Success takes hard work.  Make no mistake, there is no easy way to success…I wish, but there is not.  If someone tells you their business opportunity is easy…run.

Be Consistent – I know a lot of people that work hard but they are very inconsistent.  Especially, if you’re working on your dream part time, you need to set specific days and specific hours aside each week to build your brick and mortar or home business.

Pray – My personal key to success is to pray like it’s up to God and work like it’s up to me.  This last component to success in my life ( I believe it was the most important component of all) was my relationship with God.  I know that without him I would have not had the success I had.   Am I saying that one cannot have success without God…of course not.   There are lots of people who are successful who don’t really know or care about God…and that’s a shame and really their loss.  Some people think that they would have to give up their success if they wanted God in their life…that’s just a BIG lie.  God lets you enjoy your success, adding joy, peace, love, good health and more.
That’s True Success!

When I became a Christian, just after I arrived here in the USA, I was taught the lesson of tithing and I never forgot it.  My wife, then my girlfriend said that I should give 10% of my income back to God.  I thought she was crazy. “10% ! I said.  Are you crazy? I only made $800 per month…that’s $80!   That’s a lot of money to me! I don’t even have enough to live on!”  It’s probably the same you would say.  After some convincing, I gave it a shot.  To my surprise, the next month I made $3,000, which is the most I ever made.

The question is, who is your provider? Is it you?  I realized, as a Christian, you give that job over to God. He becomes your provider.  By giving back 10% of your income you show that you trust God to be your provider.  If you’re a Christian and you don’t exercise that principle, you’re missing out on some great blessings from God.  I would not be surprised if you’re struggling financially because of that.  Give it a shot…you’ll be surprised as well!

Having money or making a lot of money by itself without having  joy, peace, good health, a great marriage is a very disappointing success.  There are many examples of great success stories like Elvis, Michael Jackson and many others who have lots of money, and they will tell you that they would all trade it in for having good relationships, good health, a great partner, etc.

Focusing On Money:
Focusing on money will lead to eventual failure.  I’ve done both.  There were times when I focused on just making the big bucks…wanting to make it in the worst way.  I learned that lesson in my twenties.  Coming to America, I wanted desperately to make it in this country.  I was in advertising sales then.  I rose to the top very fast, however, my focus was on how much money I could make…and I did make good money.  However, pretty soon I was consumed with having success.  It was a pretty big disappointment, because I was working 60 to 70 hours per week.  I did not have balance in my life.  I’m not saying that you should not have money goals in your life…you should…just don’t make ”Making Money“ your main focus.  What’s amazing is, that the most money I made when I put God first and having fun doing what I was doing.  The money was just an end result of that.

Even focusing on the lack of money works the same way. It’s hard not to focus on money when the rent is due and you’re short.  I understand…I have been there too.  Regardless, you have to change your thinking…your self talk and your focus.  I challenge you to give away money to your church or to a charity when you don’t have enough money…it’s one way to get the focus off yourself…and it works.