Shownotes
Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 458 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Failure or Success on Life’s Trek – Philosophy Part 8
Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy podcast. This is Day 458 of our trek, and today is Philosophy Friday. Every Friday we ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy. Each Friday we are in a multi-week trek as we explore the teachings from some of my virtual mentors, such as Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and Earl Nightingale.
The core of our current trek is based primarily on Jim Rohn’s book The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle. I have learned a considerable amount from reading and re-reading this book on my own trek of life, and I trust that it will benefit you also. Keeping with the continuity of Wisdom-Trek, I will be adapting it to The Five Trails on Life’s Trek.
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Our client workload has been brisk this week, so the unpacking of what we brought from our Charlotte home will probably take several weeks.
The leaves are starting to turn colors in southeastern Ohio. The view from our 2nd story office windows certainly provides a beautiful backdrop for working each day. As the actual seasons change, so do the seasons of our lives. This is why it is so important that we Develop a Powerful Personal Philosophy. If you have missed the past few Philosophy Friday treks, it would be good to go back and review them to get caught up on our progress so far. We have a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s break camp and continue on the first trail of this extended trek as we cover.
Failure or Success on Life’s Trek – Philosophy Part 8
As a reminder, our overall extended trek will cover these five trails:
- Philosophy
- Attitude
- Activity
- Results
- Lifestyle
Last week on our hike we focused on the importance of the decision-making process, which is so crucial for creating a powerful personal philosophy. When we want to improve our lives in any area, it is beneficial to learn from what causes both failures and successes in our lives. We will first look at:
1. The Formula for Failure
Failure is not a single, catastrophic event. You do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply:
· Failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day.
Why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day? The answer is because he or she does not think that it matters.
On their own, your daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision, or a wasted hour generally doesn’t result in an instant and measurable impact. More often than not, you will escape from any immediate consequences of your deeds.
As an example, if you have not bothered to read a single book in the past ninety days, this lack of discipline does not seem to have any immediate impact on your life. Since nothing drastic happened to you after the first ninety days, you repeat this error in judgment for another ninety days, and on and on, it goes. Why? Because it doesn’t seem to matter. This is a great danger. Far worse than not reading the books is not even realizing that it matters!
Far worse than not reading the books is not even realizing that it matters!
If you eat too many of the wrong foods, you are contributing to a future health problem, but the seeming joy of the moment overshadows the consequence of the future. It does not seem to matter. If you smoke too much or drink too much, then you go on making these poor choices year after year after year because…it doesn’t seem to matter. The pain and regret of these errors in judgment have only been delayed for a future time. Consequences are seldom instant; instead, they accumulate until the inevitable day of reckoning finally arrives, and the price must be paid for your poor choices — choices that didn’t seem to matter.
Failure’s most dangerous attribute is its subtlety. In the short term, those little errors don’t seem to make any difference. You do not seem to be failing. In fact, sometimes these accumulated errors in judgment occur throughout a period of great joy and prosperity in your life. Since nothing terrible happens to you, since there are no instant consequences to capture your attention, you simply drift from one day to the next, repeating the errors, thinking the wrong thoughts, listening to the wrong voices, and making the wrong choices. The sky did not fall in on you yesterday. Therefore the act was probably harmless. Since it seemed to have no measurable consequence, it is probably safe to repeat.
You must gain a better understanding of the laws of planting and harvesting. If at the end of the day when you realized that you made your first error in judgment the sky had fallen in on you, you undoubtedly would have taken immediate steps to ensure that the act would never be repeated again. Like the child who places his hand on a hot burner despite his parents’ warnings, you would have had an instantaneous experience accompanying your error in judgment.
Unfortunately, failure does not shout out its warnings as your parents once did. This is why it is imperative to refine your philosophy in order to be able to make better choices. With a powerful, personal philosophy guiding your every step, you become more aware of your errors in judgment and more aware that each error really does matter. As Galatians 5:9 tells us, “This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough!”
2. The Formula For Success
We will just glance up the trail for the Formula for Success and then continue our hike next week. Like the formula for failure, the formula for success is easy to follow:
· Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day.
Now here is an interesting question worth pondering over this next week: How can you change the errors in the formula for failure into the disciplines required in the formula for success? The answer is by making the future an important part of our current philosophy.
Both success and failure involve future consequences, namely the inevitable rewards or unavoidable regrets resulting from past activities. If this is true, why don’t more people take the time to ponder the future? The answer is simple. They are so caught up in the current moment that it doesn’t seem to matter. The problems and the rewards of today are so absorbing to most people that they never pause long enough to think about tomorrow.
day to look a little further down the road? You would then be able to foresee the impending consequences of your current conduct.
Armed with that valuable information, you would be able to take the necessary action to change your errors into new success oriented disciplines. In other words, by disciplining yourself to see the future in advance, you would be able to change your thinking, amend your errors, and develop new habits to replace the old. Invest some time this next week considering what minor errors in judgment repeated every day you can turn into simple disciplines practiced every day. As Proverbs 2:11 tells us, “Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe.”
We are deliberately taking our trek slowly as we ponder How to Develop a Powerful Personal Philosophy on our continued hike up the Trail of Philosophy today. This is not an easy hike to make. It requires changing your habits from failures to success. It requires refining your decision-making ability so that you will build a strong foundation in your life.
Next week on Philosophy Friday we will continue our exploration of The Formula for Success. Make sure to join us for the continuation of our trek on the Trail of Philosophy next Friday. I know you will find these insights interesting and profitable in living a rich and satisfying life.
Our next trek will be Motivation Monday when we explore more trails of how to get and stay motivated to bring value to your world. So encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along on Monday for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.
That will finish our trek for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person and inviting them to come along with us each day. I would challenge you today to take just one precept that we learn today in Proverbs and commit yourself to applying it to your life.
Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.
As we take this trek together, let us always:
- Live Abundantly (Fully)
- Love Unconditionally
- Listen Intentionally
- Learn Continuously
- Lend to others Generously
- Lead with Integrity
- Leave a Living Legacy Each Day
This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!