Helping With Failure!

I love being a Dad! To me it is one of the most wonderful things that I have ever experienced. It is awesome to have the responsibility as well as the love that is the result of being a Dad! My own Dad had a sign in his office my youngest brother, Tim, gave him, it said, “Anyone can be a father but it takes someone special to be a Dad!” The sign had a picture of a young boy in a boat on the lake with his father and they were fishing together.

I have had the blessing of being Dad to three awesome people. Each has brought their own particular brand of joy to my life. Each has experienced their own challenges and known their own victories. I like to feel that I have played some part in helping them become the wonderful men and woman they have become. One of the greatest challenges I have experienced as a Dad is helping them to overcome failure.

Failure is something that each of us will experience in life. I was recently reading a book by motivational speaker and author Zig Ziglar called “Better than Good.” The book is about how to experience a life that is “Better than Good,” good just isn’t good enough. In my opinion this book is a must read for everyone, especially parents. One segment of the book deals with the subject of failure. This discussion really caught my attention and gave me a lot to think about as a Dad.

Zig spoke of what is often classified as failure being nothing more than just a slow start. He tells the story of a man that is familiar to most of us, so let me share some of it with you. Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriot’s professional football team has won three Superbowls and been selected as MVP in two of those. In 2007 he was selected for three different NFL Most Valuable Player Awards and a Player of the Year Award and an Offensive Player of the Year Award. He is a four time Pro Bowler and a one time first team All-Pro. He has been featured on “60 Minutes,” hosted “Saturday Night Live,” was invited to the 2004 State of the Union and signed a $60 million contract in 2005. He has done all of this by the age of 31. However, although he was an All-American in high school he did not receive any scholarship offers until his Dad sent out sixty highlight films to college coaches around the country. He was finally offered a scholarship at Michigan; however, it was not as a starter. At the end of his college carrier the NFL teams said he was too skinny to play in the NFL. They said he didn’t have the right type of body or a strong enough passing arm for a successful NFL quarterback. During the draft he sat waiting through six rounds before being selected. Tom Brady was the 199th draft choice that year. The New England Patriots let him sit on the bench until the starting quarterback was injured before he was given an opportunity to play. From that point on, the rest is history, and what a history it is! Zig asks the question, “Is this man a failure or a slow starter?” I think with hind sight in our favor we would all say he was just a slow starter.

Zig Ziglar also lists some lessons learned from failure, which I thought I would share:
*We learn to depend on God
*We learn humility
*We learn we can’t always get what we want
*We learn to make a correction in our course of action
*We learn character
*We learn perseverance
*We learn we can survive

I, as a Dad, hate to see my children fail at anything. I felt their pain in failing. I also think maybe I felt somewhat like a failure also. I have struggled to keep my mouth shut when my advice wasn’t sought or it was ignored. However, one of the greatest things that we can do as a Dad is to allow our children the privilege to fail. Oh, we need to help them, encourage them, coach them and pick them up when they fall. At the same time, we need to allow them to have the learning experience of failure along with the thrill of success when they overcome that failure.

I can’t help but think of Tom Brady’s Dad sending out those sixty highlight films for his son to coaches around the nation. He helped him the best he could. However, somewhere Tom learned to believe in himself and he learned to keep trying until he got it done. I think maybe he learned that from a man who kept plugging away until he got his son a chance with a college in Michigan.

Looking at failure, isn’t it the same in our walk with God? God allows us the opportunity to fail. He knows we are making mistakes, yet He gives us the privilege of choice. Then, being the awesome Father that He is, He picks us up and brushes us off helping us to learn from the experience of failing. - God Bless!