Last night, I decided I wasn't going to keep paying to sponsor an online networking interest.  I got into it because I had hoped to bring business owners from throughout my own area together to network with each other, first by meeting online, then possibly by meeting each other in person.

I had written, in ending the group, that I supposed it was a "failed" experiment, but that I'd at least given it a shot.  One person wrote me and said that I was viewing it incorrectly.  It wasn't a failed experiment, she said, in that I probably got to talk to people and touch people that I might have never met otherwise, and that just because my ultimate goal wasn't reached wasn't fair to consider it, or myself, as "failed".

It was an amazing way to look at it, and something I needed to see.  You know, I listen to sales tapes and motivational tapes, and most of the speakers talk about failure as learning experiences rather than as ultimate endings.  So, one gets into their mind this word "failure", and it's a hard word to let go.  Even Zig Ziglar, in his CD set View From The Top, talks about failing early in his career before finding his stride, and he's the master of words that are positive rather than negative.  If Zig misses this one, then just who the heck am I to have found this one on my own?

In a way, I guess this makes me as good as Zig, and not as good as the person who pointed this out to me.  Failure is a terrible word to associate with the lack of success; I hope to take it out of my vocabulary.  I thanked this person for teaching me another way to view such things; it's a lesson we probably all need to learn, because we've all been in the position at some point in our lives.