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When I was a kid growing up, failure was anything less than a 70 on a test. 80 was okay, 90 and above was the golden mean. People who scored high would score high in life, in love, in riches, pretty much everything. People who failed school tests would likely fail at most other things as well. That’s what I was taught. It was a lie.

The important thing about tests in those days was to figure out what the teacher wanted and to put that in the papers you were to write or the problems you were to solve. Figuring out what the teacher wanted and getting it in the form they wanted meant the difference between success and failure.

Outside of school, I came to learn that learning to fail is much more important than learning to succeed. Taking initiative, figuring out what something means for yourself, the willingness to take risks when that means you might fail– even to expect a certain amount of failure as a normal part of the process– that all had to be learned outside of school.

Learning to fail well is important because "failure is more common than success; poverty is more prevalent than wealth; and disappointment more normal than arrival," as one writer put it.

So, I have tried to learn to embrace failure rather than avoiding it. Because avoiding it doesn't work, and the attempt makes me feel bad. Failure is not avoidable.

Still, every once in a while, we get reminded that we have to break a few eggs to make a cake. Perhaps you've come across these Rules for Being Human:

• You will learn lessons
• There are no mistakes, only lessons
• A lesson is repeated until it is learned
• If you don't learn the easy lessons, they get harder (pain is one way the universe gets your attention)
• You'll know you've learned a lesson when your actions change.

As far as failure goes, I like the Texas saying: "It doesn't matter how much milk you spill as long as you don't lose your cow."

One corporate trainer encourages his trainees to think differently through the use of a mistake quota. He gives each student a quota of 30 mistakes to make for each training session.

And if the student uses up all 30? They receives another 30. As a result, students think of mistakes in a whole new light, and begin learning.

Sometimes we set people up for failure because we hold on to rules– that if we only re-framed them, they would no longer make sense.

Let me give you another example. Four monkeys were placed in a room with a large pole in the center. Suspended from the top of the pole was a bunch of bananas. One of the hungry monkeys started climbing to go get something to eat, but just as he reached out to grab a banana, he was doused with a torrent of cold water. Squealing, he scampered down the pole and abandoned the attempt to feed himself.

Each monkey made a similar attempt, and each one was drenched with cold water. After making several attempts, they finally gave up. Then the researchers removed one of the monkeys from the room and replaced him with a new monkey.

As the newcomer began to climb the pole, the other three reached out and pulled him down to the ground. After trying to climb the pole several times and being dragged down by the others, he finally gave up and never attempted to climb the pole again.

The researchers replaced the original monkeys, one by one, and each time a new monkey got in, he would be dragged down by the others before he could reach the bananas. In time, the room was filled with monkeys who had never received a cold shower. None of them would climb the pole, but not one of them knew why.

We can get used to failure, or we can get used to hearing the stories of other people’s failure. Or, we hear stories of about how it has always been done.

Even though the top banana could be in reach– we are told we will fail and we come to believe it. Perhaps until a pioneer comes along to prove otherwise.

Mozart was told his music was “far too noisy,” Vincent Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime. We know Einstein was told he was no good at math, that others were told that heavier than air machines were impossible, and the top market for automobiles in the United States was 2,000 tops, because there wouldn’t be enough chauffeurs to go around.

Sometimes, it isn’t other people who pull us down– its ourselves.

Here are some driver explanations for their car accidents:

1. A telephone poll was approaching fast. I attempted to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end.
2. The guy was all over the road, and I had to swerve a number of times before hitting him.
3. I pulled away at the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.

These drivers came up with these narratives because they didn’t want to admit they had failed to negotiate the road properly.

And it is easy to get into a fear of failure. School grades and the corporate office will look down upon failure, even if it helps you learn.

The first important step in weathering failure is learning to depersonalize – making sure you know that a failed event, idea, or even relationship does not make you a failure. For many people the pain of failure leads to fear of failure. There is a fear cycle when it comes to failure.

Say someone experienced failure as a child. Maybe they tried to sell candy door-to-door to raise money for school. Then, as an adult, this person is asked to serve on the canvass committee. They think back and they say– oh, I know I’d be no good at that.

When we have a fear about something, it can lead to inaction. Inaction means we avoid the experience, which means we stay inexperienced.

Because we don’t have the experience, we don’t develop the ability. And because we don’t have the ability, we have a fear of trying it ever again.

So, sometimes it pays to break the cycle. Sometimes, the best way to break the cycle, is to not think too hard, or plan to much. That can be difficult for thoughtful people to do. Thoughtful people are used to planning things.

A doctor’s office waiting room magazine has this to say about motivation:

The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation and then guess what. After you start doing nothing, that’s what the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep doing it.

Motivation is like love and happiness. It’s a byproduct. When you’re actively engaged in doing something, it sneaks up to you when you least expect it.

It occurred to me, that if I was to practice what I preached, I would have to talk – at least a little bit today – about some failures in my life.

So, for what is worth, let me tell you about 3 of them. Of course, I’ve had more than 3 failures in my life, but for me, these are interesting ones.

Failure Number One. Years ago, I was a traveling salesman. I was living in California. A nice little beach town. I did a lot of travel by air. I loved it. On one particular trip, I was really shaken up by the turbulence. In fact, people on the plane – including me – thought we were going to crash and die.

Of course, we didn’t crash or die. But I did become phobic about riding in airplanes. Or even going to the airport to pick somebody else up. Needless to say, this put my job as a traveling salesman into serious jeopardy. I tried to see if I could do something else at the company, but it wasn’t working out. Everybody, including me, could tell. Finally, I was fired.

I felt like a failure. For one thing, I did not really like the job in the first place. I was doing it for the money. But I was working with people who did like their job. So, I kind of felt like a fraud.

And I had managed to get somewhat good at it, but I still didn’t like the job. And then I get fired. You can mess up a lot in the work world, but if you get fired, it’s a very public way of saying– you failed.

What to do? I had rent coming up and a car payment, and not much savings. And so I was in a kind of limbo for couple of weeks. But it gave me space to think about what it was I really did want to do.

And that thinking led me to seminary. And to Reverend Bonnie. And eventually, to here. So really, my getting fired was the best thing that happened to me.

But you could not have told me that then. I would not have believed you. In fact, one of my friends did tell me that then, and I didn’t believe him. But, I believe it now. And I kept my friend long enough to be able to tell him. And that’s nice.

Failure Number Two. Back when we were living in Connecticut, we were thinking about buying a house. We could see that there are a lot of rundown houses that needed fixing up. At least in the neighborhoods we are considering buying in. So, we spent a bunch of money on a real estate course. And we learned a lot. And we took our newfound knowledge, and all the different ways of buying real estate, and over the course of a year, we bought– exactly nothing.

Shortly after that, we came here. And I remember thinking at the time, back when we were looking at real estate, that this should be relatively easy. And it wasn’t. So now I believe, that it would be possible for me to continue learning about local real estate, and get into some investment real estate. But it’s not something I think I want to do now. For one thing, I’m not starving.

The instructional materials for these kinds of things– whether it’s investment real estate or starting your own business making bunk beds in your garage – they’ll tell you the same kind of thing: if you just take the five to 10 spare hours a week you have, and quit watching TV, and instead, devote your energies into entrepreneurial activities, you can quit your day job in a year.

But the problem for me is – and I suspect for others – that we don’t really want a second or third job. The value of riches, simply does not outweigh the value of our time. Time spent with family, friends, or just sitting in a great big chair with a beverage and a great book. Plus, I don’t want to quit my day job– it happens to be my dream job.

So, I have to say, I have lots of books on real estate, and some videotapes, that kind of thing. And pretty much, they are just gathering dust on the downstairs bookshelf.

But, after a lot of thought, I finally figured out a way to make some financial gain from the knowledge in these real estate books. I plan on donating them to the library and taking the tax deduction.

Failure Number Three. One of the things that keeps on surprising me is how hard parenting is. I figured I had already learned everything there is not to do by observing my own parents.

But once my children were born, I learned the wisdom of that quote from Lord Randolph. The one where he says: I used to have seven theories about child-rearing. Now, I have five children and no theories.

Like all parents, Bonnie and I struggle with motivating our children to do what we want them to do, which is often not what they have in mind for themselves. We found ourselves slipping into saying some fantastic things. Things, that if you stop and think about them make absolutely no sense whatsoever. If you’re a parent, you have at least heard of these things.

For example my father, used to say, every once in a while – if you don’t stop crying, I”ll give you something to cry about. If you stop and think about it – that makes no sense whatsoever.

You may think the kid should not be crying, and then of course, you are arguing with reality. And reality always wins. It’s not fair, it’s reality!

As parents, we found ourselves saying something like: you need to brush your hair. Or, you need to clean up your room.

And of course what is our kid thinking? Our kid is thinking:

“That’s interesting. How can my parent tell what I am feeling I need? Because you know, the thing is, I don’t feel I need to brush my hair. Nope, now that I think about it– not at all. And another thing. I’m pretty sure I don’t actually feel the need to go to bed right now.”

And you know what, they’re right. They don’t feel the need. And in fact, we don’t even feel that need. What we feel – is what we want.

But, if I tell my kid that I want her to brush her hair, she might say back to me: “well, I want to have some gum.” Somehow, we think that if we tell our children “you need to go to bed now,” that what we are doing is really just being helpful in pointing something out. They have a need, and we’re pointing it as helpful people. This is different than saying: “I don’t care about your wanting gum, I want you to brush your hair.”

If only parenting were like the old fashioned movies: Come Child! Hear and obey!

It’s like in the movies where Yul Brunner, as the dutiful son in The Ten Commandments tells his father the Pharaoh, So it is written, so it is done. Early parent fantasy: Clean your room! Child: Your wish is my command, oh noble and exalted majesty.

But it doesn’t work out that way, so we tell our children what they “need to do.”

Telling someone what they need is a mind game. Who is the expert on what a person needs or wants? They are. Each person is the expert on themselves.

And if we tell a child that they have a need– that they do not in fact feel for themselves– there is a disconnect. We are telling them that they don’t even know what their own feelings are. And that can make people crazy.

One time, Bonnie was telling our then four-year-old, that she had to do something. And our then four-year-old threw back her head and defiantly contended that “you can’t make me.”

And the terrible truth was – she was right. Unless we literally went over there and forced her fingers around a brush, and forced that brush to go through her hair, we couldn’t really make her brush her hair.

And upon reflection, we realized we did not want to be the kind of parents that would grab their child’s hand & force it through their hair. We wouldn’t want to be that kind of parent, we wouldn’t want to be the child that was forced, we wouldn’t want to be the bystander who saw it.

So those are but three of my failures. And I expect to make many more. And it is the nature of my calling to have the great good fortune to share the more spectacular ones with you.

And so, it occurs to me that it is important for us to be generous and magnanimous people– to be forgiving when our family, friends, co-workers, maybe even our ministers, make mistakes.

We know that thoughtful people learn from their mistakes. And we know that as we forgive others– especially when it might cost us something to do so– we will likely be granted similar largesse in return.

And in the making of mistakes, we become new people, who try new things, and are willing to learn & explore & be creative & to wonder again at life, the universe, and everything.

Let me close with my favorite reading about learning from failure. It is from Portia Nelson, an educator... AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS