They are who we thought they were!

In case I haven't mentioned it...I love football! I also pay close attention to the game and I even have my own philosophy of it. I say my own because I know that sometimes my thoughts may be pretty random. "They are who we thought they were!" is what former Arizona head coach, Dennis Green said about the Chicago Bears after a reporter asked him a question concerning the loss his team had against them. The more and more I hear this phrase and use it myself, I start to "think" and I ask you, "who do people think you are?"

Whether your family and friends or even your enemies think you're an amazing person or a complete idiot all depends on one person...you. I'm not saying anything groundbreaking, but we control how everyone else sees us. So how do you see yourself? Do you consider yourself a Superman or a Superwoman, a survivor, or a quitter? Taking it back to football one more time, current Miami Dolphins executive VP, Bill Parcells is quoted with once saying, "You are what your record says you are." There is a football team that started their season 5-0, and at that point, everyone was eager to talk about this team's chances in the playoffs and possibly the Super Bowl. This same team went on to lose 4 straight games and now has a record of 6-5, and now many are talking about what could have been even though there are still 6 games left in the season. Where this team ends up after the season all depends on what they think of themselves and what they do with these thoughts.

The more and more I think about it, the more I contend that there are only three reasons we will ever fail.

1) Whether or not it was too early or too late, it wasn't the right time for our goal

2) We didn't work hard enough to accomplish our goal

3) We didn't think we could do it

That's it...just these three reasons. We will never fail because of someone else or because something's "too hard". We constantly hear stories about how people have succeeded and sometimes their stories are miraculous, and maybe even "lucky", but the stories of failures are sometimes just as interesting. In one instance, a few of Thomas Edison's teachers said that he was, "too stupid to learn anything", yet Edison went on to invent the light bulb. After his first audition, a casting director told Sidney Poitier that he should, "...stop wasting people's time and go out and become a dishwasher or something." Immediately after that, Poitier devoted himself to acting and in return, he became one of the world's best actors.

The bottom line is that we should never be afraid to fail, but we should avoid not trying. I've failed, you've probably failed, and the majority of the people in the limelight have failed. The difference in a lot of cases between failure and success is what we do and the way we think.