What have you failed at lately? Do you brag about it to others? I don’t know about you, but I have tried a lot of things and I have failed at a lot of things. Most people think that it reflects badly on you to fail and then to share what you have failed at doing. I was that way when I was younger and was embarrassed and shy about discussing things that didn’t go so well. Now, I don’t feel that way, because I realize that these attempts have led to my successes.

How do you become successful if you don’t try? Ask anyone that has achieved success and they will tell you, it was not a straight line from where they started to whatever place they realized their relative success. They will tell you it was filled with a few big failures, or maybe a bunch of small ones, but whatever the case, there were failures along the way.

Let’s look at some of mine. I started a comic business when I was about 12, and invested in a bunch of comics that didn’t sell. Then my brother, Mark, and I bought some equipment ($15k) to take pictures and place the pictures on tee shirts, cups, calendars, and just about anything. That took a while to pay off. My partner in the financial planning business, Robert, and I started an investment newsletter that went for naught. Then, even with the success of our first mutual fund, I had the idea to start the iFund, which was the first fund run by the shareholders. That was about $500k down the drain.

My current partner, Rich, and I invested in the franchise 1-800-Got-Junk that couldn’t compete with an established brand in our local market. That was a lot of headaches and an expensive education. Then a few years back, there was the software application, called FlockGPS, that didn’t make it, which was a side project within our software company. So as you can see, failure is a part of the process. And if you are not failing, in my opinion, you are not going anywhere.

This was supported in a video I saw posted on LinkedIn recently, reiterating my point. Sara Blakely, who is the founder of Spanx, talks about how her dad asked her at the dinner table, “What have you failed at today or this week?” He spoke like it was something to be proud of, and if you were not failing, you were not pushing hard enough. Sara pushed hard enough to become the youngest female billionaire in the world, doing it all on her own. Check out her CNN interview.

I remember listening to Jim Clayton of Clayton Homes, at one of our EO events. He sold his company to Berkshire Hathaway for something like a billion dollars when he said, you will not be truly successful, until you have had at least one bankruptcy. That was something that made me go hmmmm.

So….what have you done this past week, month or year to fail?

So you have had a hard day and you have lots of things coming at you – work, deadlines, bosses, personnel issues, organizing a family – and you feel overwhelmed with it all. Your brain is about to explode. Feel like this often? I do at times. How does it make you feel to know that, according to famous Harvard professor and psychologist William James, the average person uses only 10 percent of his mental power? Wouldn’t it be nice to use more?

How can we use more of our brain to not feel so overwhelmed, and more importantly to become the highest version of ourselves that we are seeking to become? An author that had a huge impact on me was Napoleon Hill, from the legendary book Think and Grow Rich. This book instills that your mindset and beliefs are what control your life. From all the research that Napoleon did with the wealthiest of men back in the early part of the 20th century, he realized that what you think about is what you are.

So let’s think about that. What are the dominating thoughts that are in your mind? Do you find yourself thinking and saying things like, “That is only for rich folks.” or “I will never earn enough money to buy a house like that.” or “He is filthy rich!” So what is so filthy about having money? Bill Gates and Warren Buffet don’t look so dirty, and on top of that, they are out creating jobs and bettering the world with all the great things they are doing with their money. If we think money is bad, dirty or evil, how are we going to attract it to us in the quantities that we really desire?

I found that early in my career, I had negative thoughts – like I wasn’t good enough to have lots of money or that it wasn’t possible. It was books like Napoleon’s and others I read that helped me set in place the right mind set to believe that I could have success and the money that I desired. You do this by creating positive statements about your success and wealth and stating them as if they are happening right now.

The subconscious will believe what you think about and set you in motion to get what you are after. This doesn’t mean that you can’t go backward once you have success or accumulated some wealth. Then, you have look at what you have been thinking about and determine whether your thinking is pushing you forward or holding you back.

I was reminded of how I was holding myself back, and how I still might at times, by reading Five Things You Need to Succeed According to Napoleon Hill. I know I let things get in my head that I don’t want there, and so I go back and read and implement things that are discussed in Think and Grow Rich and another great book like the The Answer.

Do you feel like you are getting all you can out of your brain or are you holding yourself back with negative thoughts? Change your belief and change your life, as many great ones have said.