April 29

Written by Bill Grandi on April 29th, 2020

I recently finished reading the book The Gift of Struggle by Bobby Herrera. It is a book on leadership and how the struggles a leader has can actually be good for him/her. No leadership can be without struggles. That’s the nature of the beast. I don’t remember who said it but it is a wise saying: “The sure way to failure is trying to please everyone.” Just the very nature of leadership will lead to struggles; tugs-of-war; jealousy; competition within and bad-mouthing without; a desire to fudge the truth; and a whole lot more. Even failure. But leadership learns from struggles, even failures, and moves on.

No one likes to fail. Let me rephrase that. Speaking personally: I can’t stand to fail. I cringe knowing that something I proposed or believed in bit the dust. Not that everything I propose is good or fulfilling or right. But I don’t take pride in failing. I don’t have a plaque that says #1 Failure. And yet it happens. History is dotted with failures. Edison. Bell. McCormick. Einstein. Luther. Lincoln. Washington. The list is endless. And yet, we remember them for their place in history

The one thing I’ve learned along the way and Herrera’s book reinforced is Weakness is the stuff of true greatness. How much better it is to be brought low in humility-and to learn from it- than to be arrogant and proud and miss the lesson(s). One more thing: Someone already showed us the way to true greatness. What looked like a failure was actually His greatest triumph. Check out Romans 5:8-11

“Father, help me to see failure does happen but doesn’t have to bring defeat. Help me to rise up out of the ashes and learn from my struggles.”

 

2 Comments so far ↓

  1. I’m firmly convinced that we learn more from our failures than our successes. It will certainly teach us humility if nothing else!
    Blessings, Bill!