{"id":5397,"date":"2009-07-30T05:00:56","date_gmt":"2009-07-30T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=5397"},"modified":"2020-12-12T21:27:41","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T05:27:41","slug":"failing-forward-transforming-mistakes-into-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/failing-forward-transforming-mistakes-into-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Failing forward: Transforming mistakes into success"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sometimes the best personal finance books aren’t about personal finance.<\/p>\n
In June 2006, for example, I shared a brief review of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art<\/i><\/a>. Ostensibly this book is about creativity and overcoming procrastination, but I found its lessons valuable for pursuing my financial goals. Last year I read Mastery<\/i><\/a> by George Leonard. On the surface, this book has nothing to do with money, yet it’s one of the best books about money I’ve ever read.<\/p>\n John C. Maxwell’s Failing Forward<\/i><\/a> is another of this ilk. It’s not meant to be a personal finance book, yet I’m willing to bet that more of you can improve your financial lives by reading it than by reading The Automatic Millionaire<\/i><\/a> or Personal Finance for Dummies<\/i><\/a> (though these are both fine books). Why? Because books like Failing Forward<\/i> apply to your entire life rather than just one part of it.<\/p>\n I clearly remember a period during the late 1990s during which I felt like a failure. I felt washed up. I felt like I was sleepwalking through life, accumulating debt, eating too much, working in a job I hated. Every time I ate a hamburger or bought something on credit \u2014 or worse, bought a hamburger on credit \u2014 I felt this<\/i> failure meant that I<\/i> was a failure.<\/p>\n But what I eventually learned was that failing at one thing is not failing at all<\/i> things. And, in fact, failure is a necessary part of growth. Life is filled with trial and error. In order to walk the path to success, you need to make some wrong turns along the way.<\/p>\n What I learned, to use John C. Maxwell’s terminology, was to “fail forward”, to use each mistake to make myself better.<\/b> He writes:<\/p>\n One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and label them as failures. Instead, they need to keep the bigger picture in mind. [A successful baseball player] doesn’t look at an out that he makes and think of failure. He sees it within the context of the bigger picture. His perspective leads to perseverance. His perseverance brings longevity. And his longevity gives him opportunities for success.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n There’s a reason that one of Get Rich Slowly’s core tenets is: Failure is okay.<\/b> As I was paying off my debt, I made lots of mistakes. I still do. When I bought my Mini Cooper, for example, I didn’t do everything I could have done to get the best deal possible. That’s okay. I try not to let mistakes drag me down. Instead of focusing on the things I did wrong during that transaction, I remember that in the Big Picture, I’m doing awesome. And I’ll try to use my mistakes to do better next time.<\/p>\n In Failing Forward<\/i>, Maxwell writes that there are seven key abilities that allow successful people to fail forward instead of taking each setback personally. Successful people:<\/p>\n These seven points form a firm foundation for dealing with failure in all parts of life, including personal finance. As you pay off your debt, as you learn to invest, as you cut your spending, remember that some failure is inevitable. But you are not your mistakes. Own them, learn from them, and move on. Continue to pursue your goals.<\/p>\n Maxwell peppers his book with anecdotes from celebrities, entrepreneurs, and famous people like Edison and Mozart. He uses their stories to illustrate how successful people don’t let failure trap them; they “fail forward” instead. He also cites scientific research and shares stories from his own life.<\/p>\n Failing Forward<\/i><\/a> is a motivational book, one that helped me break out of a funk and put me in the right frame of mind. Reading this helped me realize \u2014 again \u2014 that failure isn’t an end. It is, as Maxwell notes, just a stepping stone to success.<\/p>\n Related reading:<\/p>\n Note:<\/b> I listened to the audio version of this book, and did not read the print edition. I have a print copy that I referred to while writing this review, but the version I audited while strolling through the neighborhood was abridged. Though I think it unlikely, it’s possible that the print edition is padded with filler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes the best personal finance books aren’t about personal finance.<\/p>\n In June 2006, for example, I shared a brief review of Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art<\/i><\/a>. Ostensibly this book is about creativity and overcoming procrastination, but I found its lessons valuable for pursuing my financial goals. Last year I read Mastery<\/i><\/a> by George Leonard. On the surface, this book has nothing to do with money, yet it’s one of the best books about money I’ve ever read.<\/p>\n John C. Maxwell’s Failing Forward<\/i><\/a> is another of this ilk. It’s not meant to be a personal finance book, yet I’m willing to bet that more of you can improve your financial lives by reading it than by reading The Automatic Millionaire<\/i><\/a> or Personal Finance for Dummies<\/i><\/a> (though these are both fine books). Why? Because books like Failing Forward<\/i> apply to your entire life rather than just one part of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[501,31919],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span>Failing Forward<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>Seven Ways to Fail Forward<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Stepping Stones to Success<\/span><\/h2>\n
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