FAILING WITH A SMILE...

"There more I look at it, the more I think it is folly to eliminate #Failure from our lives. We are not God"! ~ Life Signatures 

I just had a heated ‘discussion’ with my colleagues about why there was no much euphoria in Kenya after the Olympics like there was in Uganda. A small detail to mention is that Kenya won several medals while Uganda came out with just one Gold medal courtesy of one Stephen Kiprotich.

They tell me that Ugandans are more celebratory and love appreciating small things…I tell them that their purported ‘small thing’ is a rare gold medal after 40 years of waiting. I tell them that Kenyans average at least 5 gold medals each year…the discussion is a stalemate…so I move on to add one more post to this blog.

That gentleman Kiprotich said something very interesting. He said that he practiced or rather trained for that gold medal for more than five years. He says that one day, he raced against the great Haile Gabrselassie. During that meeting, he asked for tips on how he can be great.

As it were, Stephen lost that race…yet with a smile on his face. That was not the only race he lost. Yet that smile still was on his face. He knew what he was aiming at. Sweet loses those were for the man knew that race by race, he was inching closer to his greatest goal.

Stephen already embraced what I strive to embrace myself...loving to fail. Here is the thing: We all hate failing. We would all go to all costs to avoid failure. Yet again and again, even from birth to our first baby steps, it is failure that has shaped us.

It is misfortune that creates revolutions

It is oppression that creates activists

In Kenya, it was that second President who many consider a dictator that made people clamor for a new constitution.

It was Stephen's subsequent failures that made the man an Olympic Gold Medalist,

It was the 1000 failed experiments that made the bulb a reality.

My own life has seen great 'revivals' because I failed in the first place.

Something tells me that the shortcut to peace and success is a big old embrace of failure. Why is that?

There is only one thing that causes failure...ACTION. Is it any wonder that great ideas are just that--Ideas?

Is it any wonder that many people do not take the very next simple action towards success because they fear to fail?

My life in 2013 will be marked by audacious action taking...kind of like hunting for failure. I perceive that i have been comfortable for too long waiting for the right thing at the right time with the right people...a rarity in itself.

It is time to put a smile on my face and celebrate my taking action more than the feedback I get from it--whether I fail or succeed.

You wanna join the quest? Its gonna be fun!