The future will depend on what we do in the present

Mahatma Gandhi

The success literature is full of ‘get motivated’ messages.  The subtle message is that failure is an important part of success.  Getting knocked down in inevitable.  Staying down is true failure.  Nightingale Conant markets success through books, CD’s and other material.  In a recent newsletter, they point to a well known story from Maine.

It has been said that failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.

We often look at high achievers and assume they had a string of lucky breaks or made it without much effort. Usually the opposite is true, and the so-called superstar or "overnight success" had an incredibly rough time before he or she attained any lasting success.

You may not know the background of a certain laundry worker who earned $60 a week at his job but had the burning desire to be a writer. His wife worked nights, and he spent nights and weekends typing manuscripts to send to publishers and agents. Each one was rejected with a form letter that gave him no assurance that his manuscript had even been read. I've received a few of those special valentines myself through the years, and I can tell you firsthand that they're not the greatest self-esteem builders.

But finally, a warm, more personal rejection letter came in the mail to the laundry worker, stating that, although his work was not good enough at this point to warrant publishing, he had promise as a writer and he should keep writing.

He forwarded two more manuscripts to the same friendly-yet-rejecting publisher over the next 18 months, and, as before, he struck out with both of them. Finances got so tight for the young couple that they had to disconnect their telephone to pay for medicine for their baby.

Feeling totally discouraged, he threw his latest manuscript into the garbage. His wife, totally committed to his life goals and believing in his talent, took the manuscript out of the trash and sent it to Doubleday, the publisher who had sent the friendly rejections. The book, titled Carrie, sold more than 5 million copies and, as a movie, became one of the top-grossing films in 1976. The laundry worker, of course, was Stephen King.

Read the rest here: Nightingale Newsletter

Napoleon Hill is the father of success literature in the the US (really it was Horatio Alger – Rags to Riches and Ragged Dick).  The message for today is from Napoleon Hill.

Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.

Napoleon Hill