Even the best of us fail sometimes, but it doesn’t mean the one failing is a failure, author and business coach Todd Reimer said during a presentation on Thursday.
“If I see something as failing, I see it as an event,” he explained. “If I see myself as a failure, I’m stuck there. I can’t get out, and that’s where a lot of us spend our time, is stuck in our past failures.”
Reimer gave a presentation highlighting his new book, The Art of Failing: Getting Back On Your Feet Again, at Dr. Java’s Coffee House on Thursday.
Rather than give the book a “motivational” or “optimistic” slogan, he calls it “possibility thinking.”
This approach, he explained, is the ability to see possibilities around one’s self instead of just the negatives.
“Usually, in life, we find what we’re looking for,” he said. “If I’m looking for problems, I’ll find them. If I’m looking for solutions and the potential in a situation, I’ll usually find that, too.”
The book was inspired, in part, by a handful of failures Reimer experienced in his own life -- failings he highlights in one of the book’s opening chapters.
“Some of them are mistakes, and some are things life threw at me that I ended up failing, whether it was business or relationships or whatever it was,” he said.
Pulling from personal experience, Reimer then highlights 13 keys to getting one’s life back on track.
If I see something as failing, I see it as an event. If I see myself as a failure, I’m stuck there. I can’t get out, and that’s where a lot of us spend our time, is stuck in our past failures. - Todd Reimer
The first piece of advice is to not let failure define you.
“There’s a difference between failing and being a failure,” he said, adding that every successful person went through personal failures before finding success.
The book’s closing chapter is called “Buy a Lottery Ticket.”
This isn’t an endorsement of the gambling industry, but a play on lottery slogans that encourage people to dream again.
“Start to see that possibilities are still out there,” Reimer said. “Dream! It’s something we give up when we fail.”
Reimer, who lived in Prince Albert in the past, shared these and other tidbits during a presentation at Dr. Java’s Coffee House on Thursday, with the underlying theme falling under his “Buy a Lottery Ticket” message.
Dreaming is important, he told a small audience of coffee shop attendees, because it let’s one see what they are capable of becoming.
“Allow yourself to dream about how you could be … so you’re not dragging that ball and chain of your failures.”
More on Reimer and his book can be found online, at http://toddcoaches.com.
