On My Failure

I have failed. My office has closed due to a combination of being kicked out by the landlord and never truly getting off the ground to launch myself out of financial ruin. As for me, I am retraining to open again next year whilst selling in the meantime.

I have taken a few days to make my transition. A few days of vegging out and resting. I must admit, taking this failure was hard on me. I am going to the shore for a few days and when I come back, I will be in full gear once again. Finally focused on selling and retraining. The one thing that made failing extremely hard was the relentless actions people have taken to make sure I realized I did not fail and I am not to blame. I don't like that. It made this much harder than it needed to be. I like to get straight to the point and admit my failure because that is the first step to leading a successful rebound. There is no point in blaming other people, factors, things, etc. It all comes down to you and how prepared you were to take on the challenges. When it really comes down to it: I was inadequately prepared for the situation I stepped into.

I want to share these thoughts because failure is necessary to learn. I learned a ton about myself from my failure. I learned my strengths and how I need to develop them more. This should be the approach we take for failing. We should not blame outside factors because you can step around those factors. That is all part of finding a way. Everybody who endeavors on a risky endeavor has outside factors tearing them at the seams. However, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs found ways around them, along with all other self-made millionaires.

When it comes down to it, will you accept the blame of your defeats or do you only want the credits for your victories?

On Creativity

Creativity is essential in creating the life of your dreams. If you go through life following instructions, conforming to the status quo, and stifling your creative instincts in favor of safety, then you will lead a mediocre life, at best. If you really want to accomplish your dreams, then you must be creative in your pursuit of them.

Don't tell me, "Tim, I am not creative at all." That is because you don't PRACTICE it! Creativity is a skill! You must practice creativity to become creative. Robert Frost did not write "The Road Not Taken" the first time he ever decided to write a poem. He likely has hundreds of poems that he created which he finds terrible -and are terrible.

I am not saying you must write poetry, paint canvasses, or create ice sculptures. There are plenty of opportunities in your daily life to express creativity! What is your work place like? How can you make it different? What can you do creatively in your room? Your garden? Your voicemail?

Times have changed. It is no longer better to be safe than sorry. Allow your creativity to flow. Every person is naturally creative. I cannot tell you one kid who doesn't enjoy drawing. Let it flow. When you are creative, you are yourself.

On VoiceMails

I just redid my voicemail. I just realized how boring they are by calling my representatives and leaving messages. Also in The Little Red Book Of Selling, I remember Jeffrey Gittomer going on a rant about voicemails. And he is right.

What is the point of a voicemail that says "I cannot come to the phone right now but leave a message." I mean obviously you cannot come to the phone right now... either that or you are ignoring me. I called to talk to you, not to hear why you cannot answer.

Be creative with voicemail. The purpose of this blog is to promote being REMARKABLE and your voicemail can provide that!

Mine is:

"Hello, this is Tim Fenning, I am too busy swing dancing to answer the phone but leave your credit card information and I will be happy to put your order for a Cutco Kitchen through when I am done dancing."

Is yours off the wall?

On A Powerful Sentence

I recently lost some motivation and struggled to get up in the morning for a job that I know I love to do. However, everybody has days where they feel like quitting. Everybody has days where they feel like they are not making progress. Finding an office was one of the most frustrating times in my life.

However, I have since turned it around this week. The way I turned it around was really rooted from my demotivation and asking "why?" Why wasn't everything working properly? Why aren't people coming into training? Why have a couple of my reps gone missing? It came down to the question, "Am I helping others?" My answer was no. I thought I was not truly helping anybody. I even felt like I lost the respect of my friends and family. And I spent hours searching for the answers at night with no ability to fall asleep.

Finally, it came down to this: "If I were to die tonight, what would people remember me for tomorrow?" This is pretty powerful. It induced me into extremely deep feelings as far as who I truly felt I could become and how I should get there, and get there as soon as possible. I started reading again after this question, writing, and continuing this blog now.

I began to tell people my thoughts about life again and what I feel motivates people. I am giving speeches to nobody as I walk around alone at times just envisioning myself preaching to a full arena. Now I realize the sentence that truly motivates me when I feel down.

"Live life as if every day is your last day and influencing people is your purpose."

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I laid out my thought process behind this sentence in the hopes that maybe one of you can utilize that process and find your purpose and incite action today.

Make a sentence:

"Live life as if every day is your last day and __________________________ is your purpose."
Read it out loud WITH PASSION every morning.

On Boundaries

"We predefine our boundaries."
-Christian Gouse

I personally believe every person on Earth was born to do great things. However, we set our limits as we grow based on what society tells us to set our limits to. The vast majority of people live an unremarkable life so they can have a safe job with a home. However, a person should constantly challenge themselves to improve so they truly have no boundaries at all.

The only boundaries you have are the ones you create. Nothing is impossible: I'm possible.

On Failure

I find it essential to start with failure. Nobody likes to fail and I will be the first to admit that it is extremely tough to fail. But you have to realize that failure is a necessary predecessor of success. As a matter of fact, I will go as far as to say that the number of failures a person has in life can predict the amount of success they will also experience.

This is not to say go risk everything you have worked for to pursue your passions and dreams as a really passionate music listener since you are so good at listening to music, you should be paid to do it. Take calculated risks. Income is important but if you need to take a pay cut to do what you truly love. Then do it and try to master that task!

The only true way to learn if something works is to try something and see if it fails and if it does fail, then try to improve it.