Calendar Books by Allen James - Daily Reading - "The Journey: A Calendar Book"

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I embrace today's reading with renewed strength and claim the victory which is stated in the Good Book...Philippians 4:13 (which has always been my favorite verse of scripture:  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (KJV)...

"Always remember: Failure is NEVER an option" (James, 2012).

Failure, not unlike personal success, is procured in our psyche long before our adult years.  How we perceive the connotative meaning of the word depends on our mindset.  However; I maintain failure is never an option on the journey to personal success.  Sure, there are going to be failures along the way, this is only natural, but again, it's all about our perceptions of these failures...how WE understand denotative meaning of the word. Too often we are "tricked" by others who wish for us not to success, thus "destroying" us is their only option, it is the only way for THEM to feel like successes, worthwhile; they refuse to allow others to celebrate what is actually success by spinning it into a failure.

When we misstep in our journey, we "pick ourselves up by the straps of our boots" and trudge ahead.  Lessons learned from missteps are most often the best.

When we do not meet our goals and objectives; it is painful to our striving toward personal success, and is just as painful to worry about how others will react to such failure. The paradox is we do everything we can to avoid these pains even though we all know failure is the best teacher and we have to be open and talk about our failures in order to learn. More than this, openly acknowledging failure is often a catalyst for innovation taking us from good to great.

To address this conundrum we need a paradigm shift in how civil society views failure.  We think this starts with open and honest dialogue about what is working and what isn’t so Admitting Failure exists to support and encourage organizations to (not surprisingly) admit failure.

Fear, embarrassment, and intolerance of failure drives our learning underground and hinders innovation.  No more. Failure is strength. The most effective and innovative individuals are those who are willing to speak openly about their failures because the only truly “bad” failure is one which is repeated.


No question failure and rejection cause us pain, and this pain can be--at least in the moment--excruciatingly disappointing. Yet it is really not possible to go through life without such adverse experiences, so strenuously attempting to avoid them is ultimately as foolish and self-defeating as it is futile.

Remember: failure is NEVER an option in the bigger picture of personal success.  Keep looking up.
: )  AJ