“It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs…

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory or defeat.”— Theodore Roosevelt small biz rural entrepreneurship success failure

“Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” This quote is variously attributed to Confucius, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or Oliver Goldsmith. If anyone has some concrete info on the original source, I would be glad to have it. small biz rural entrepreneurship success failure

“Teach a highly educated person that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze every failure in order to find its cause. He must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.”— Charles F. Kettering small biz rural entrepreneurship success failure

Motivating real and lasting change is a huge challenge, whether you are trying to change yourself or bring others to change. Change is simply hard. Is there any effective tool? Logic doesn’t work. Threats don’t work. Fear doesn’t even really work. What does that leave? Joy. Really. Joy. “Joy is a more powerful motivator than…

Zane Safrit is thinking about the role of failure, posted at the Duct Tape Marketing blog complex. I’m a fan of failure. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with it. That familliarity has taught me great lessons like humility, compassion, patience, perseverance, planning, flexibilty. And it’s taught me that no success comes without failure. In…

““Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.””–William Saroyan Your business will go through cycles of success and failure. Some days you will be toiling away in the valley of hard work, with little reward in sight. Later, you will find yourself on…