Nobody ever discusses at length of how many times Warren Buffet has invested in ‘wrong’ stocks and lost money; no one really comes and tells us that there was a Microsoft product that Bill Gates was really keen on launching, but it never flew off the shelf. Also, nobody ever describes how Messi felt when he failed trying to make it big. The point is no one definitely came and told us about the dark days of the greatest motivational and spiritual trainers, philosophers and teachers of the World. It’s as if Zig Ziglar, Benjamin Franklin, Robin Sharma and even Dalai Lama, for that matter, have always been smart, energetic and motivated every breathing moment. One presumes that these legends are blessed as they knew it all since they were born. Nothing can be further from the truth. Failing and falling happens.

Let me disclose one of the most fantastic truths of life-we all have and will fail and fall-Nobody except the ones two feet under the ground or released in ashes are free from this blessing of failing and falling. Two things I want to point out:

• Yes, it is a blessing because the reality is it is only when we are in pain that we grow. Yes, they tricked us throughout our childhood making us believe the other way around. I bet if my mother saw me studying 18 hours a day as a six-year old and came to me and told me “Son, pain is awesome; you are growing and moving towards your greatness” and she nailed this in my head no matter what how I felt about the weird statement of hers at that moment in time, I would today get excited about failing and falling because unconsciously my lovely mothers’ words would ring in my mind. But, the truth is, for most of us, it didn’t happen that way. Also, it’s not her fault because even her parents never trained her like that. As a matter of fact, I would love to go back in time, find the bunch of those unwise dudes who messed it up for all of us when each one of them went to their kids and said “You watch out, pain is bad, so stay away from it-avoid falling-avoid failure-they are not good.” Well, in truth, I can’t change what they said, but I am going to play my part and tell you another truth-Failing and Falling is a gift.
• Secondly, it’s how you use failure to improve yourself and grow. You see when one of the greatest sales and motivational speaker, and trainer of all times-the great Zig Ziglar got rejected, he restricted his downtime to only a few minutes or limited number of hours before he got right back up and went on to close the next lucky individual to have been privileged to be his customer. When he failed, he didn’t let his shoulders and face hang- somewhere, somehow, he realized that pain is fantastic. So, reduce your downtime to the minimal.

I want you to know that you can be fantastic-yes YOU-no matter how old you are, where you are, how educated, tall or short, ‘good’ or ‘ugly’ looking, ‘thin’ or ‘fat’ you are- you can. Remember PAIN IS FANTASTIC. It’s now about getting-up and using it to live your dreams because the deep truth is, that is the only way my friend.