There are moments where starting over seems almost an impossibility. And in few cases, it probably is, but in most cases, it is absolutely worth your effort and your consideration. If there is one thing that I have learned from collecting these little morsels of wisdom from countless sages who have walked the planet under all types of global circumstances, it is that the ability to pick up the pieces and start with the knowledge gained from your prior endeavor is one of your most valuable and resilient opportunities.

Thomas Edison on his path to inventing the lightbulb said, “I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” And followed that with, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Life loves to give you scary road markers on your path to success. They loom out at you like ominous creatures emerging from the darkness. And they are always most willing to give you a good scare and chill you to the bone. But that does not make them accurate, it only makes them opportunities for your insecurity to find footing and start the internal discussion towards resignation.

Starting over with experience facilitates your ability to start at a higher level. For all of the lambasting that video games have received since their invention, I would argue that almost all video games send you back to the point that you were at when you embarked on the next level and failed.

In that video game, did you learn to turn the game off forever and say you cannot do it? Or perhaps you stopped playing and then came back to it under a fresh mindset and defeated the variable in the game that had caused you to fail? Or did you do research on what others have done to overcome that level and then applied that research which leads to your conquering that level and moving forward?

When you look at video games as a metaphor for this particular lesson, I think they drive the point home better than most other illustrative means.

Failure is just a sign that someone attempted something and almost every great person has failed countless times on their way to greatness.

Stay the course, it has far more value than you might imagine. Happy Saturday?

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Written by Brian Weiner
When I was 5 years old, I discovered that the lemon tree in the backyard + dixie cups + water and sugar and I was in business. I have been hooked on that ever since. In 1979, I borrowed $14,000 to create a brand new product... photographic greeting cards with no text on the inside, called Paradise Photography. That was the start of The Illusion Factory. Since then, The Illusion Factory has been entrusted by all of the major studios and broadcasters with the advertising and marketing of over $7 billion in filmed, live, broadcast, gaming, AR, VR and regulated gaming forms of entertainment, generating more than $100 Billion in revenue and 265 awards for creativity and technology for our clients. When I took a break from film school at UCLA to move to Hawaii, my mother did not lecture me. Instead, she took 150 of her favorite aphorisms and in her beautiful calligraphy, wrote them artistically throughout a blank journal. That is the origin of the Lessons from the Mountain series. Since then, on my journeys to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise, I have spent countless hours contemplating words of wisdom from the sages of all races, genders and political persuasions, constantly accumulating the thoughts to guide me on my life path. I hope you enjoy my books. Please let me know your thoughts, as I highly value your feedback!