Never See Yourself As A Failure...Even When You Are Failing

American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson believed, "Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail."  Maxcy Filer failed more then most, rose up each time and serves as a great example of someone who never saw himself as a failure.

Filer graduated law school in 1966 and took the California bar exam for the first time, and failed. He would continue to take the bar exam 47 more times over the next 25 years and finally passed in 1991, at the age of 61. Never once did he see himself as a failure.

During those 25 years while he was trying to pass the bar Filer worked in several law-related jobs, including terms as a law clerk for the cities of Los Angeles and Compton. "He also did heavy lifting at a dairy and took other jobs."

He enrolled in "every bar review course on either side of the San Andreas Fault, dropping $50,000 in fees." He took the exam in San Francisco, Glendale, Oakland, Riverside, Carson, Los Angeles and San Diego. No matter the location, he failed.

He and his wife also raised seven children during his odyssey to pass the bar. All his children went to college, and two of his sons, who were in elementary school when their father started taking the bar exam, became lawyers."

When Filer was sworn in as one of California's 128,261 lawyers he got a standing ovation from new colleagues. A bar official said he personified three keys to success: "persistence, persistence, persistence."

Filer never saw himself as a failure even though he continued to fail and said "I believed I passed the bar each time. They just didn't pass me."

Questions To Ask Yourself

• Maxcy Filer never saw himself as a failure even when he failed. In what ways do you need to keep trying even if you are not obtaining the results you want? 
• What concerns do you have about failure?
• How can you prepare yourself to keep trying even if you are faced with failure initially?
• How many times have you tried something yet failed?
• How did you view yourself after trying to accomplish something time and again?
• If you have failed once and then given up, why do you think that is?