MASTER THE ART OF FAILURE!!

  Without a doubt, one of the most precious skills you could ever hope to acquire is mastering the art of failure.

"But Aaron! You have to be a winner to be successful"! 

No you don't. 

"Yes you do"! 

NO...YOU...DON'T!!

  To illustrate that things are almost never what they seem, allow me to introduce to you the sneakiest chef of all time! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our friend the common North American beaver (we will call him Steve). Ok fine beavers don't cook, however they have a lot to do with yummy sweet ice cream, candies and a hole slew of baked goods.

Enter castoreum....

  What is our friend beaver Steve's contribution to all of the aforementioned treats? Vanilla. Yes vanilla, or when derived from the castor sacks of beavers (which are located in the beavers anus), castoreum. 

"Whaaaaaaaaat"?!

  Yep, they use beavers anal juices in vanilla flavoring in some of your scrumptious goodies! 

  Now before the fact check police come beating down my door, understand that I did not say all vanilla flavoring is made this way. I said some vanilla flavoring is made from castoreum...don't believe me? Look it up! 

  The point of all of this is that much like you'd never think juices from a beavers butt have any place in things that taste oh so delicious...Most never stop to realize the value a bitter taste like failure has, thus never realize, that when combined with other ingredients, failure is necessary in the sweet taste of victory and success.

  Don't act like you're not impressed...I mean seriously...connecting achieving goals and beaver butt juice! You're welcome!

  Moving on. I invite you to go research some of the great figures throughout history. Most of these powerful men and women where not thought of as winners at first. Thus the reason I believe being a winner is an end result, not a tool used on your journey to success. What you will find with almost all of them, is a big fat pile of stinking failures on top of failures till they finally reached something absolutely amazing! Take Thomas Edison for example, (who didn't invent the light bulb, but greatly improved it and made it possible to use in homes). Now depending on where you look there will be some discrepancy in how many attempts it actually took Edison to make a successful bulb. However the number always seems to be in the thousands! 

  When was the last time you EVER tried something a thousand times and kept going failure after failure? Probably NEVER! So what the hell goes through the mind of a guy who fails a thousand times? one things for sure...IT AIN'T F@#KING QUITTING!!

The last absolute I will give you is this...

FAILING ISN'T QUITTING, AND QUITTERS SUCK!

  Let me make this real clear. To quit means to renounce or abandon.  Its not that quitters cant, its that they wont...they refuse to try again.

  To fail means you didn't achieve a goal. What you do next is what separates whining stinking quitters from those destined for greatness. The great ones learn from failure. It is a tool to be used..."where did I go wrong? what can I do better next time"? Einstein once said, "You can't solve a problem with the same thinking that created it". This questioning gives birth to the snarling beast of desire! "We don't care what it takes, WE ARE GONNA MAKE THIS SH!T HAPPEN DAMMIT"!
 
And when you do have your victory, how much sweeter is it made by all the blood sweat and tears you poured into it. I mean think about it...walking up a flight of stairs isn't exactly a "Rocky moment". but drag your ass up the side of mount Everest in a wheel chair after five failed attempts, dragging your Sher pa's behind you and...THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD WILL KNOW YOUR NAME.

NOW THAT IS THE KIND OF FAILURE I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW!!