Last time (Sometimes You Win Part 1), I posted about a webcast I watched: John Maxwell talking about his new book, Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn. I mentioned I’m writing about the webcast to share some take aways I received, not only from John, but from others on that webcast.

We all experience losses and failures; it’s a part of life. What we do in those situations determine where our lives will go from there. Here are a few more “nuggets” that I gleaned from that 90 minute presentation.

What Are You Concerned About?

In talking about losses, John said, “When you’re more concerned about learning from your losses than how you feel about your losses, you’ll succeed. If you’re more concerned with how you feel about your losses then all you’ll try to do is quick fixes and you’ll try to escape and you’ll try to leave them, and you won’t learn from your losses. We do this because the hurt of the losses is kind of tough.

Every time I leave a loss and I don’t learn from it, and what will happen is, I’ll just repeat it. The day that I said, ‘Okay, I have a greater desire to learn from my losses; that desire is greater in my life than how I feel about those losses,’ everything began to change. That’s when I started hanging around long enough to learn from the losses.”

Dave Ramsey

Another guest on the webcast was Dave Ramsey. He told his story of how he went from great success to total bankruptcy. That loss was the catalyst for him to learn great biblical principles about money. Today he is on radio and TV, and through his programs he has helped millions of people get out of debt.

Dave also talked about humility. He said in his life, “before there was humility, there was humiliation, unbelievable pain, shame, guilt, and I sat in that for awhile. We didn’t bounce back. But when we decided to take responsibility, we set about the business of studying biblical finances, learning about money and what God says about money.” He said he did that because he never ever wanted to be back in that situation again.

He went on to say, “It’s absolutely vital that you understand that you have to get back up, dust yourself off. I know it hurts; I’ve been there, done that. But you really only have two choices when you’ve got these lemons. You can collect your lemons and sit around and suck your thumb and say, ‘Look at all my lemons, or you can make some lemonade out of them.

Those are your only two shots. And I’m not any better or smarter than anyone else. I just don’t quit. Proverbs says, ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick.’ When you declare, ‘I’m a failure,’ and you quit, it makes the heart sick. There’s no desire in that. ‘But, when desire comes, it is the tree of life.’”

Personal Responsibility

In concluding the webcast John talked about personal responsibility. He said, “Responsibility is the first step of learning. When we lose, when we fail, we never make progress until we look at ourselves. It’s easier to go from failure to success than it is from excuses to success.

Until you and I accept the responsibility that we have we’ll never learn and we’ll never profit form the losses and failures from our lives.”

His final point was about improvement. He said, “We learn from our losses so that we can get better. You’ve got to look at every loss, look at every failure and ask yourself, ‘How am I going to get better from this?’

Improving yourself is the first step to improving everything else. When you fix yourself all of a sudden everything else starts to get fixed around you.” He then quoted James Allen: “People are anxious to improve their circumstances but they’re not anxious to improve themselves, and they therefore remain bound.”

John went on to say, “When I get better, everybody else gets better; when I think better, life begins to change, but it all begins with me working on me.

Improvement forces us out of our comfort zone. We’re doing and thinking things that we’ve never done or have never thought. Improvement is a daily commitment. Every day, I am going to learn from my good experiences and I am going to learn from my bad experiences.”

I felt sitting through the webcast was worth my time. I learned some things and relearned some others. I want to continue to learn and improve so that I will have more to offer others.

One More Thing

There was one thing that was not specifically handled in the webcast, although it may be in the book, which I’ll find out when I read it. But I think the principles in the webcast still apply. And that is, what about when we get knocked on the ground through no fault of our own? If that happens, you and I know we cannot go around for the rest of our lives being miserable saying, “It wasn’t my fault this happened to me.”

In those times, even if they are devastating to us, we can still take responsibility for our own thoughts today. We can commit to improving ourselves today. We can determine to rise above it today, and we can begin to move forward with our lives today. God promised that He would direct our steps, but if we’re sitting on the side of the road, there are no steps to direct. That journey, that process begins with our own thoughts, and those are in our control.

I hope some of these “nuggets” or highlights from the webcast have been helpful and inspiring. All of us will face challenges in our lives. When we find ourselves at a low point, will we get up and begin to move forward? John Maxwell often repeats a line from one of his friends, who says, “I’m never down; I’m either up, or I’m getting up!”

Mike Verdicchio
2013

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Sometimes You Win Part 1
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