Note from Phil: What follows is a guest post from reader Tim Eyre. It’s a fantastic article and one I should have posted a few weeks ago. Sorry Tim. Sometimes the reason for the delay is unclear to me at the time, but becomes clear after posting it. Hope you’ll forgive me. Enjoy the article everyone!

Failure is good.

Yes you read that correctly. Forget about what you’ve always heard, thought, or believed. Erase it from your memory. Instead remember this: failure is not a bad thing. Sure, it’s gotten a bad rap over the years. But that’s because most people don’t really understand what failure is. If they did, they would no longer fear it. They would embrace it.

Most people fall into a common trap. They define failure only in terms of what it isn’t. Their thought process goes something like this: Success is good. Failure is the opposite of success. Therefore failure is bad. Sounds logical, but the logic is very flawed. So what is the flaw? In actuality, failure is never the opposite of success. The only way this would be true is if it suddenly became impossible to succeed after failing. But history has taught us differently. Every big success is always preceded by a whole bunch of failures. Thomas Edison failed thousands of times before inventing the light bulb. Henry Ford failed numerous times when he tried to start a business—until he finally created one of the most successful motor companies in history. There are hundreds of similar examples. Sounds to me like failure and success are anything but opposites—sounds like they are partners.

Like the song says, every good poker player knows that “you never count your money till the dealin’s done.” So then why do so many of us insist on diverting our attention to the scoreboard in the middle of the game instead of focusing on doing what we need to do to achieve the right final score? Life is a nine-inning game and we don’t stop playing after the fifth inning. People who are truly successful are those who have learned to see failure for what it really is—not an impediment, not a diversion, but a necessary building block on the structure of ultimate success. They succeed because they understand failure and they embrace it.

The first step in learning to understand failure is to recognize its benefits. Here are just a few of them:

Strengthening: To see how failure makes us stronger, look no further than the human body. In order for our immune systems to work, we need to get sick first. This is how the body builds up immunity to the disease. In fact, our whole system of immunization is based on the same principal—failure followed by success. So is muscle-building. Vigorously exercising our muscles breaks them down and actually damages the tissue. But shortly afterward, when the muscles heal, they become bigger and stronger. Every time we fail, our failure has the same effect on us. It ultimately makes us much stronger in the long run.

Teaching: Failure teaches us what did not work. And there is no more valuable piece of information you can get, because in order to know what will work you must first know what won’t. Every time we fail, we narrow down the number of possible avenues to success. Failure also teaches you about yourself. Each time you fail, see how you react and ask yourself: are you getting better at putting failure in its proper perspective? And are you slowly learning to stop fearing it and start welcoming it?

Motivating: Sometimes failure can be the world’s most effective motivational tool. For many people, the experience of failing makes them more determined to succeed than they ever were before. They’ve tasted failure—now they are not going to let it happen again. So the end result is a stronger focus, a greater work ethic, and a huge increase in the probability of future success.

Surprising: You’d be surprised to learn how many times what people thought was a failure was actually a huge success—only they didn’t know it at the time. Several of history’s most noteworthy inventions have come about by accident—or more precisely, by what was considered a failure. Here is just a partial list: Post-It notes, corn flakes, chocolate chip cookies, the microwave oven, artificial sweeteners, potato chips, Play-Doh, and penicillin. All these successes were a direct result of “failure.”

The most successful people in the world are those who expect to succeed. And the reason they expect to succeed is because they also expect to fail. They understand failure. And they embrace it and welcome it because they realize how valuable it is. Without failure, there can be no success. And the quicker you fail, the further along you are on your path to succeeding. To many people, the stigma associated with failing tends to cloud from view everything but the downside of failure. But when you begin to lift that cloud and reveal failure’s huge upside, you are well on your way to obtaining its huge dividends.

About the author: Tim Eyre works in the self storage industry, regularly traveling to see locations like County Club Hills self storage. In locations like Chicago self storage Tim helps midwesterners store seasonal equipment when its not being used for outdoor activities or construction projects.

One of the most interesting books I’ve read so far in 2011 is Surviving Your Serengeti by Stefan Swanepoel. The book was interesting for the simple metaphor of the African Serengeti and your personal AND business life. Not to mention there is a super cool quiz you can take to find out what YOUR animal is. You can go all the way to the end of this interview if you want to just take the quiz.

Phil: Tell me about the inspiration for the book.

Stefan: When solving problems, sharing experiences or clarifying situations, I often find myself using metaphor. I believe sketching complex situations into fun parables allows people to understand and remember easier.

I am a storyteller at heart, so when I decided to expand my technical writing beyond my current portfolio of books about trends, change and technology, I starting looking for a story.

When I returned to the Serengeti, I realized the strong parallels between life in the Serengeti and in the business world today. That’s when I knew I had found the message of the book.

Not a forced parable, nor a simple one-dimensional metaphor but a huge canvass to provide a powerful message.

PG: Why is this book so important for the right now?

SS: This book is about persevering over whatever challenging conditions you may be facing and surviving your own Serengeti. Whether you’re looking for a job after a long period of being unemployed, struggling to keep your job – balancing more projects with less manpower, trying to keep your company alive through the recession or dealing with challenges in your personal life, this book provides a strong, and hopeful, message of survival – something I think we all need, particularly in the environment we’re in today.

PG: The metaphor for the Serengeti and the animals are strong ones, but I’ve worked with a bunch of monkeys. What do I do?

SS: Haven’t we all? Well, you could be a giraffe, and graciously work with them, or you could be a cheetah and efficiently take them out and…OK, so we are not in the African jungle. We are in an urban, civilized jungle, where such activities are frowned upon, right? On a more serious note, we each have multiple skills, but only one dominant skill.

Find that one.

Find the intuitive YOU.

Find the animal in YOU.

For example:

* Can you endure anything? Do you seem to just keep going, while others around you waver or quit? That skill is portrayed beautifully by the Enduring Wildebeest in the Serengeti.

* Are you a strategist? The one who has a plan for everything. You have a road map, and you know exactly what you want from life and how you are going to get it. You are so a Strategic Lion.

* Are you an entrepreneur, always the creator looking for some new enterprise? That would make you the Enterprising Crocodile.

* Watching time. Maximizing resources. Making sure everything goes smoothly and effectively. No-one illustrates that better than the highly Efficient Cheetah.

* Are you a people person? Grateful, caring and soft-spoken. Always making sure that you do the right thing, no matter what. That is the Graceful Giraffe.

* Do you enjoy stepping outside your comfort zone and trying something new and different? That represented by the Risk-taking Mongoose.

* Do you have the gift of the gab? Do you speak eloquently, understand body language and realize the importance of getting your message across accurately? Few are as in touch with those around them as the Communicating Elephant.

It doesn’t make any difference which animal you are; one is not better than any another. What is important is learning to maximize your skill to not only survive, but also to succeed in whatever challenges you encounter.

Achievement comes from understanding who you are instinctively, and then honing your talents and your skills. (Emphasis Phil’s)

PG: Who is the best person to read this book?

SS: Surviving Your Serengeti is a fable meant for helping people overcome obstacles in business AND in life. It is about life, our journey through it, and the role we play in it.

Business owners; parents; teenagers; people looking for a job. This book was written with all of these people in mind, along with many others. This message is universal and should find a home with anyone who has a challenge to overcome, a dream to follow, or even someone who feels they just can’t make it any more.

PG: What animal are you, and how has that worked for (and maybe against) you in your career?

SS: I originally started with about 20 animals and over 50 skills, which I eventually narrowed down to seven, but only after spending two years of struggling to unlock the wisdom each animal has to offer.

Personally, I would have tagged myself as a wildebeest or a cheetah. Endurance and efficiency are both skills I possess.

That said, neither is my most dominant skill. Instinctively, I am a lion. I have strategies, plans, roadmaps, goals and checklists that I use to approach all challenges in life, both personally and professionally.

And yes, I did take the “What Animal Am I?” quiz. Five times. I was a Cheetah once and Lion four times. As only a quick fun quiz, it was surprisingly accurate.

All three skills have played a part in shaping my career. Setting clear goals at a very young age, being very efficient in pursuing them and not giving up, no matter what, has brought me to the junction of life where I find myself today.

PG: I took the quiz, and I am the Communicating Elephant. Good stuff!

PG: If you could offer one key working takeaway from your book, what would it be?

SS: Never give up, and live the life you have always believed you can.

PG: Anything else you’d like to share?

SS: Success is seldom an accidentally discovered treasure.

My hope would be that Surviving Your Serengeti enables people to believe in themselves more. Not unbridled, ignorant arrogance – but a determined, balanced, founded resolve.

Make a plan and use your resources effectively. Be enterprising and take calculated risks. Don’t give up. Share your message, and be grateful and enjoy the opportunities, the people you meet along the way and the journey itself.

PG: Where can we learn more about the ideas found in your book?

SS: Information about the book as well as my daily blog can be found at www.SerengetiBook.com. To discover your innate skill, go to www.WhatAnimalAmI.com.

I can also be found on Twitter (@Serengeti) and on facebook.com/Serengeti.

PG: Thanks so much Stefan! VERY inspiring and insightful!

Now it’s your turn:  Take the quiz at www.WhatAnimalAmI.com.

Share your animal below.

Does it fit you?

Have you read the book? What did you think?

I’ve been following Jason Womack for quite some time. He used to be one of my favorite GTD (getting things done) gurus, sharing productivity tips and ways I could make my days more effective and more efficient.

Recently Jason aligned himself with something even more meaningful than efficiency: He aligned himself with his father to co-author a great book called The Promise Doctrine. With a forward by Marshall Goldsmith, this 88 page book is chock full of pull out pages and ways you can put it to use in your life.

The real power of the book isn’t in reading it, the power is in using it!

The biggest lesson I learned from the book, and from Jason, is that a promise is a different thing for people. Different from just saying “Yes I will.” Promises bind you more strongly than anything else you could say or do.

Jason has also offered the template for keeping promises free for people at the same place you can buy his book: at http://promiseguide.com

I got to spend about 30 minutes with Jason a few weeks back, and if you watch the video, you can learn how to use his book, how to be more productive, and how to learn and share more. It’s worth the investment of your time. I promise!

Jason Womack and Phil Gerbyshak Discuss The Promise Doctrine from Phil Gerbyshak on Vimeo.

Useful links:

• Womack Companies – Jason’s company where you can interact with him more, and read some awesome productivity articles
• Promise Doctrine – Buy the book and get Jason’s template

What follows is a great guest post from Ed Muzio, Author of Make Work Great: Supercharge Your Team, Reinvent the Culture, and Gain Influence — One Person at a Time

Literally, my doorbell is dead. It’s one of those battery operated wireless ones. I think it got some water in it, and it doesn’t work. Plus, my front door is fifteen feet behind a locked gate, so there’s no way to knock. Conventional wisdom says, if you drop by my house unannounced, you’re not getting in. It’s been this way for over a year and it has yet to be a problem.

I should perhaps be embarrassed by this, but I recently realized why it really doesn’t matter, while giving a friend a ride across town. When my car stopped in front of our destination — a relative’s house — my friend stepped out of the car, thanked me, and immediately initiated a cell phone call. As she was putting her phone away, the front door cracked open and she strolled in, carefree user of the new-age doorbell.

That’s why nobody has yet complained about mine: nobody uses it anyway! Figuratively as well, the doorbell is dead. And its death has bigger implications to our daily lives than many of us care to consider.

There’s a reason we call this the information age, and it’s not because we’re all so much smarter. It’s because we all have access to so much information, at our fingertips, all the time. I can track my package, check the status of my flight, and monitor my stock portfolio or my company’s financial status, all in a second, all with a click. I’m more informed than anyone in my position in history has ever been. And yet, being so informed has not made my life easier. If anything, I think I’m probably busier than a counterpart in my position would have been 20 years ago.

For one thing, I’m constantly doing things like checking the status of my packages and my flights! That didn’t used to be an option, but now that it is, it seems foolish not to avail myself of it. Why in the world would I choose to be uninformed, when it’s so easy to rectify my ignorance by learning exactly which city my all-important box is traversing at the moment?

Worse yet, everyone now has the expectation of immediacy. At times it feels like I’m fielding client questions and queries day and night, all of whom expect an instant answer. I pride myself on customer service, but it can be a challenge! If you supplement “client” with “customer,” “manager,” or “stockholder,” I’ve probably described your job too.

And it’s not just business contacts. Some loved ones have also come to expect an instantaneous reply when they call. I vividly recall a time when I returned calls to friends and family after I got home for the evening, or if it was a particularly long day, the following evening. Now, the calls come into my cell phone at all hours. If I don’t respond within a few hours, I end up on the receiving end of a concerned and vaguely annoyed follow-up call: “didn’t you get my message? I thought you would call me back over lunch.”

The problem is, my capacity for handling information has not expanded commensurately with the information explosion. I still have only two hands, only two ears, only two eyes, and only one brain. I may read a few hundred more emails per day than I used to, but I don’t read them a few hundred times faster. And my decision-making capacities still have limits as to how much information they can incorporate. For better or worse, I’m still just human.

And you, my friend, are in the same boat as I am. Admit it! You haven’t grown four extra hands or two extra brains either. That’s why it’s crucial for all of us to walk around with a well rehearsed script of what’s we’re trying to do, what I call a Verbalized Summary Objective Statement, or VSO. The VSO is a script that you play to others, and to yourself, as a reminder of what you’re working on. It’s also a filter that helps you turn on — or turn off — your most important sources of information. And, it’s a statement of your output that you can use at the end of the day to check that you’re making progress. If you are, you can feel satisfaction. If you’re not, you can make an adjustment. Either of those options is preferable to just going home exhausted, vaguely wondering when you started working so hard, and why you can’t seem to stop.

Tomorrow morning, when you first get to your desk and before you start doing anything, see if you can articulate your purpose for the day, or maybe the week, in about 90 seconds. Try writing it down, or better yet, say it to yourself a few times until you’ve memorized it. Then, use your little infomercial as your blueprint for the day. Whenever you’re about to engage with information — either a source of it, or a request for it — first check the contents of your VSO, and see how that source or request aligns with what you really want to be doing. In other words, pay attention to where you invest your mental and physical effort.

Probably, like me, you’ll find that not all of what is clamoring for your attention is in line with your own priorities. Although saying “no” is never easy, it is much easier when you have a burning “yes” to focus upon instead. Now that you know where you’re trying to head, you can begin to make the difficult decisions about what not to do. From here, the rest is up to you.

Actually, I do have one more suggestion. As you go through the day sorting through information, take a moment to check your calendar. If your evening plans include a visit to my house, be sure to take my cell phone number with you.

© 2010 Ed Muzio, author of Make Work Great: Supercharge Your Team, Reinvent the Culture, and Gain Influence — One Person at a TimeAuthor Bio
Edward G. Muzio is president and CEO of Group Harmonics and is the award-winning author of Four Secrets to Liking Your Work: You May Not Need to Quit to Get the Job You Want. An expert in workplace improvement and its relationship to individual enjoyment, Muzio has been featured on Fox Business Network, CBS, and other national media, and he has been cited in many publications including the New York Post, the Austin American Statesman, and Spirit magazine. He lives in Albuquerque, NM.

For more information visit www.makeworkgreat.com and follow the author on Facebook.

I’m off the grid this week, enjoying the wonder that is Colorado Springs. I’ve been here 5 or 6 tines before, but never took in the sights. This time I am making time for everything. Thanks to my pal Gwendy who is sharing her birthday week with me.

How are you taking time to see your sights?

Jim Rohn is one of my favorite speakers. His words always inspired me and left me wanting to take action and improve my life. Mr. Rohn passed away on December 5th, 2009, but his mark on the world will never be forgotten.

Check out this classic lesson from Mr. Rohn, The Law of Reaping and Sowing.

My friend (and real-life neighbor) Clint had this to say as a follow-up to my life requires maintenance article. It’s a very interesting way to think about life.

Here’s the thing … there is strong relationship between (simplify your life) and (maintain your life). The more you simplify, the less you have to maintain. If you don’t prune those emails, you have to spend more time organizing. If you buy too many gadgets, the more likely one will break (probably the one you depend on the most), and the more time you’ll have to spend fixing them (or packaging them and sending them away to get fixed). The more papers you have on your desk, the more time you’ll spend looking for that one important one.

So, you have a choice … spend a lot of time maintaining … or spend a lot of time simplifying.

Actually, there is a way to accomplish both … and that’s with automation (not to sound too much like the 4-hour work week guy, but if you automate with backups and mail filters and lights that go on automatically at night and autoreplies, etc., maybe you can still be some-what complicated (i.e., not simplified), but not have to spend as much time maintaining.

Visualize it on a continuum:

Too simplified; not enought toys <——– highly automated ——-> Too much maintenance

Buddhist monk <————————– perfect GTD geek ——-> Grandma’s attic

Bare walls, no furniture <————– perfect house with all you need —————-> Too much junk

Ask yourself this question: 

Where do you want to be on the continuum? 

I was having breakfast with some friends this morning, and after 2 hours of catching up, we realized we needed to part ways. Before we did, my buddy Steve said something that gave me pause and I’ve been thinking about it since it hit me smack in the face:

Life requires maintenance. If you don’t do the maintenance, your life is going to fall apart, or you’ll have to burn the place down.

Wow!

I don’t like maintenance. Maintenance is hard work. I often put it off and procrastinate my maintenance. I don’t do it on purpose, I just DO.

Can you relate?

So I thought about the various aspects of my life, and I thought about how I could maintain them. Maybe they’ll be helpful for you too?

Relationships need maintenance. You have to care and feed the folks in your family and in your network, or they will forget about you or find ways to live without you.

Spirituality needs maintenance. You have to keep refreshing it by plugging into it every day or you’ll lose it.

Health needs maintenance. If you don’t eat right, or exercise regularly, your health will soon detiorate, and if you wait too long, it will be too late.

Skills need maintenance to stay useful. You have to sharpen your saw or you will become dull.

What in your life needs maintenance? Whatever it is, make sure you give it some attention today!

Photo credit: Kiwi NZ

Life doesn’t always give me lemonade. I get plenty of lemons, vinegar, and other sour things that make me squish my face up in disgust. Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed by what’s around me, I remind myself “It doesn’t matter what life throws my way; what matters is how I respond to what comes my way.”

I thought about it a bit, and I came up with 5 simple ways to overcome and respond to the adversity that’s bound to come your way.

Reframe the situation – If the situation is troubling you or has you down, quickly reframe it. Look for the learning. Look for the opportunity. Let go of the adversity.

Stop what you’re doing – Once you realize you’re in a tough spot, stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW. This stops things from getting worse, and to keep you from staying stuck in a bad situation.

Ask for help – No doubt you’ve got a lot of really smart people in your life. Ask them for what they’ve done in similar situations. It’s always helpful and gives you an opportunity to learn new ways of dealing with adversity, even if you don’t use one of the recommended courses of action.

Seek out experts in the blogosphere – With over 50 million blogs, there are millions of smart people you don’t know who may have experienced the same adversity you’re going through. Do a quick blog search or send a quick tweet with your question, and in nanoseconds, you’ll have hundreds of answers that worked, or didn’t work, for others.

Refocus on the main thing – Remember why you’re on this earth, and what you’re meant to do, can help you answer the all important question, “What can you do?” instead of focusing on what you can’t do.

What are your best suggestions for responding to adversity?

All I’m going to say is, you need to sign up for this free e-course! No catch, no strings attached, just put in your name and e-mail, and get 10 ways to supercharge your life. it’s not from me, but from someone who ALWAYS inspires me to kick ass in my life, Pam Thomas. You can read about why she is giving this away here.