This so perfectly describes me right now, but sadly I’m not looking back at my life in the 90s. I guess I better hurry up and read this book! I’m going to check out the others you mentioned too.

Is it possible that millions of people, entrepreneurs and inventors who built the era hadn’t been taught that failure was an end point? How much failure was the technology of the day built on? Edison reportedly failed 1000 times before hatching the electric lightbulb. Maybe by the time he did that his sixth grade education had long since faded from his memory. BTW, his teachers thought him a dullard who’d never amount to anything.

How much talent is being stifled by institutional doctrines?

We have been trained to dread failure from childhood. We are taught that failure is unacceptable, and that it is a sign of our weak character. No wonder we are so hard on ourselves as adults!

@HollyP (#5): You didn’t mention anything about where your children go to school, but I imagine the reason your older child gave up more quickly is that she has received more training in avoiding failure at all costs. Perhaps your younger daughter doesn’t realize yet that she is ‘supposed’ to be ashamed of her failures. I hope she never does.

Despite the best advice, the most solid plans, we’re human. Things get in the way, other people get in the way, we get in the way of ourselves; it’s unavoidable. We need to be content if our direction is positive, even if we aren’t where we expected to be based on our grand plan timeline.

Anthony Robbins says that people overestimate what they can achieve in one year, but underestimate what they can achieve in ten. That being the case, any plans we make should include a generous allowance for mistakes, with a intention to learn from them.

It’s like the person who spends months researching a vacation, and books the ticket for what seems like a great price. They are thrilled and tell everyone how much money they saved. Then on the trip they meet someone who got a last minute special and booked the same trip for a ridiculously low price. Suddenly their own trip stops feeling special in comparison, because it is no longer the best deal that was available. The thing is, they would only have been able to get that low price if they’d been willing to gamble that it would be offered. It’s hard to remember that the person sitting next to you could have just as easily been left home with NO vacation while you had months to savor your upcoming trip.

We make major decisions based on the information that is currently available to us. There may always be an option that we fail to perceive or facts that remain hidden until it’s too late to react. There are also options that may never be open to us at all. Sitting around moping because someone else had the good fortune to be born into a trust fund or because they have a desirable job does no good. It doesn’t change your own position–it just makes you miserable.

As for finances, each month still feels like a fight, but when I can look back and see how far I’ve come… I should stop beating myself up when I’m not sure how much I can put in my Roth IRA because my car needs better brakes. Brakes aren’t bad, but considering we’re going to a track day in September… Better brakes would be great. (Pads are wearing down anyhow.)

I’d love to see you write a second review of this book, as it applies to your experience with diet and fitness, and post it on Get Fit Slowly.

Dan

Feeling better already.

You say you’re not focusing on your mistakes, but you’ve brought them up so often since you bought it that I beg to differ. Perhaps your history of impulse buying and the debt and remorse that engendered is coloring your feelings about this transaction, but you did not buy your Mini on impulse. We read for months about your yearning and research for this car. When you finally bought it, you could afford it and bought it for cash on terms that were acceptable to you. Sure, you could have done it differently, maybe waited longer to find a better deal, but you could afford it so you bought one when you wanted it. That was not a mistake, that was fun. Enjoy it. Enjoy the memory of buying it and quit berating yourself.

There are no exceptions.

If you know it all at age 5, you have 75 years of life ahead of you without the joy of learning to sustain you.

When we fail, we learn what we got wrong. If our response is to get that thing right, we move ahead in ways that we never could have advanced before the failure.

Failure is a necessary step in a growth cycle. There is no way to ultimate victory except through failure.

Rob

Keep trying, keep practicing and you can do it.

I went back to school when my kids headed to college, graduated at the very top of my class, got a super job, and was laid off a year later. Our family had struggle to make ends meet, using credit when I was in college on the assumption (yeah, I know) that my graduation would make the difference for us, that my first job would resolve our problems.

And it did – while it lasted. Then a lay-off, followed by underemployment, soon-to-be followed by another lay-off waylaid us. Our best plans, ruined.

I’m wandering through my days right now feel just broken and demoralized, and looking for a reminder that “this too shall pass”.

Thank you for giving me that reminder.

Failing at 72 years old like Bernie Madoff is a different story. Some may argue he actually wins! However, failure at an earlier age is fine, as you have a lifetime to learn and make up for it.

Best,

RB

Rich By 30 Retire By 40

Great review, keep up the excellent work J.D.!