Many people would rather face any situation than be seen as a failure. With the tremendous stress society places on success today, this isn’t surprising. After all, successful people are winners, aren’t they ?

Yes, they are today, but were they so yesterday? The greatest of the great have all failed at times.

The lesson of failure has rarely been illustrated more convincingly than in the life story of this famous man:

That’s the record of Abraham Lincoln, the 16^th president of the US. "Honest Abe", as he is nicknamed, is considered by many historians to have been the greatest American president.

Lincoln not only failed in the above areas of his life, he was also unsuccessful as a lawyer.

And Lincoln was very unhappy and melancholy man. His first sweetheart died before he was able to marry her. His subsequent marriage was an unhappy one – in fact, it was said that the marriage "would have been enough to destroy any man with less courage and determination than Lincoln".

However, out of his failure and unhappiness in marriage he was able to give his life to a great and worthwhile cause – Lincoln overcame his many failures to eventually abolish slavery in the US.

Historians agree that had Lincoln been happily married, he would never have become president.

Lincoln is not the only example of history’s "failures". Did you know – some of the world’s greatest failures eventually became great successes.

• Demosthenes, the famous Greek orator, was a "failure" too. He had a speech impediment, and was shy and retiring.
• When Alexander Bell was trying to get a bank loan to invest in his latest invention, his bank manager laughed at him and said, "Remove that toy from my office." The toy was the prototype telephone.
• Thomas Edison flunked grade-school mathematics. His teacher called him a dunce. He tried over 9,000 kinds of filaments before he found one that would work in a light bulb.

• English novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.
• The best-seller book,Gone With The Wind was turned down by 38 publishers in a row. But the 39^th publisher that author Margaret Mitchell tried, turned the manuscript into one of the best-selling books of all time!
• Kentucky Fried Chicken would not be what it is today, if its founder Col. Sanders did not give up trying 105 times before someone agreed to sponsor his special recipe..
• The best basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan, was once cut from his high school basketball team.

The successes of the above famous men in history would not have taken place had they run away from possible failure and embarrassment.

So don’t worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.

Sir Edmund Hilary, the first man to climb Mount Everest , failed the first time he tried to do so. But he refused to give up. "Mount Everest , you beat me the first time, but I’ll beat you the next time because you’ve grown all you are going to grow… but I’m still growing!

he pledged. On May 29, 1953, he successfully scaled the mountain – 29,000 feet straight up.

You’ve failed many times, although you may not remember. You fell down the first time you tried to walk. You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim. You missed the ball the first time you swung a bat. See how you’ve turned out today.

Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. It is said that there are 2 kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought. The saddest summary of anybody’s life is to say one day ‘I could have’, ‘ Í might have’ or ‘Í should have.’

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Point 1. In the reading above it is said

Do you agree? Discuss.

Point 2. In the cases of ALL the famous "failures" mentioned above, what common quality or trait of

character did they possess?.

Point 3. What Mind Science techniques could these famous people have used? Discuss;

MSM National Family Day 2003

Note to I/C Chairpersons from MSM President.