"I’ve never heard of anybody going all the way through life and not getting knocked down."

 

A thought by Zig Zigler, from his book, Better Than Good (p. 38). Thomas Nelson, Kindle Edition.  (Click on the book title to go to Amazon to buy the book.)

And that is so true.

Zig says, "Bonnie St. John Deane was a participant in the Paralympics. She was a one-legged skier who was competing against another one-legged skier. The other skier went first, and in the final run she fell. Bonnie confidently told her associates that she knew she was going to win because she wasn’t going to fall. But she did fall and the other skier won. Bonnie’s friends tried to console her by saying, 'She was just a faster skier than you are.' To this Bonnie adamantly responded, 'No, she is not a faster skier. She just got up faster than I did.' "

Zig goes on, "I’ve never heard of anybody going all the way through life and not getting knocked down. Some people never get up and some get up so slowly it takes years and a lifetime of anger and bitterness before they recover. Bonnie St. John Deane assessed her circumstances correctly when she said, 'People fall down. Winners get up. Gold medal winners get up fastest.' Bonnie won the silver medal, was a Rhodes scholar, and became an award-winning IBM sales representative. She has been featured in People magazine, the New York Times, and Ebony magazine. With an attitude like hers, it’s not surprising that she was once identified on NBC Nightly News as one of the five most inspiring women in America."

He then says, "Getting up and getting back into the game removes the possibility of stress from long-term failure. Failure is not falling down—failure is not getting back up. Falling down is something that happened in the past. Regardless of what has happened in the past, if you are moving ahead confidently in the present, you have no cause to be stressed."

Very, very good stuff, isn't it?

Yes, yes!