Martin Meadows - From Failure to Success: Everyday Habits and Exercises to Build Mental Resilience and Turn Failures Into Successes

From Failure to Success

Everyday Habits and Exercises to Build Mental Resilience and Turn Failures Into Successes

By Martin Meadows

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I want to thank you for buying my book and offer you another book (just as valuable as this one): Grit: How to Keep Going When You Want to Give Up , completely free.

C lick the link below to receive it:

http://www.profoundselfimprovement.com/failure

In Grit , Ill tell you exactly how to stick to your goals, using proven methods from peak performers and science.

In addition to getting Grit , youll also have an opportunity to get my new books for free, enter giveaways, and receive other valuable emails from me.

Again, heres the link to sign up:

http://www.profoundselfimprovement.com/failure

Prologue

I spent weeks working with my designer to develop a video course about self-discipline. I thought that people would enjoy watching fun, animated graphics to learn about self-discipline and it would become one of my most successful products.

I published the course on the biggest platform for video courses, distributed free coupon codes to hundreds of people and waited for an endless rain of money...

But it didnt happen.

I made a whopping $23.63 in the first month and $51.40 in the second month. Earnings picked up somewhat over the next few months, but considering I had invested a few thousand dollars in my product, I was still well in the red. Most people enjoyed my course, but you cant pay bills with positive feedback.

I decided to invest in a new, shorter course and make numerous improvements. The final product was immensely better than the first course. I also spent almost $1000 less, so I was sure I would recoup my investment quickly.

Except I didnt.

The course completely failed, making a grand total of $368.08 in the first six months of its existence.

I couldnt give up. I knew that I could make this idea work. After all, I was making some money, just not enough to recoup my investment.

I invested about $5000 in my third course. I provided even more practical and actionable content, and my designer created beautiful new illustrations and engaging animations.

Surely I succeeded this time, right?

Not really. I made $250 in the first month, and over the subsequent months, earnings took a dive. I lost almost everything I invested in this course.

As a last attempt, I decided to create a short video course that I would offer completely for free. I thought that if people enjoyed my free course, they would purchase other courses.

No dice.

I invested over $2000 and only recouped $65.21 in YouTube advertising revenue. Even worse, the free course didnt translate into more sales of the paid courses.

I would love to tell you that the story had a happy ending, but it didnt. 13 months have passed since I released my first course and Im still almost $10,000 in the red.

Even though Im a bestselling author with thousands of loyal readers, I still failed, big time. Im telling you this because I want to show you that nobody is immune to failure. Im just like you. What qualifies me to write a book about struggle are all of the failures Ive experienced to this day and the tools Ive developed to handle them.

Before, I would torture myself for days, getting angry at everyone and everything, thinking how unfair it was for me to fail. Now, to me failure is pretty much like water off a ducks back.

To some people failure is the worst thing in the world, while to others its exciting and even inspiring.

One person doesnt stop even for a second when they face obstacles or make mistakes, while another person immediately gives up, convinced that success is black or white: you either reach your goal or you dont.

What makes the difference between those people? How can you use failure to propel you to become a better person? What if there were a simple tweak that would help you redefine what failure means to you? Lastly, how can you stop getting so angry and discouraged at failure, accept it with dignity and proclaim: On to the next one!?

This book will answer all of these questions with plenty of real-world examples from the realms of personal development, health, fitness, business, relationships, and numerous other domains where failure is a constant companion.

As a guy obsessed with personal development, failure is an inherent part of my life. Over the years, I failed countless times in:

- Business It took me several long years of struggle to launch my first profitable business. Most of the time, nobody but me believed that I would ever become a successful entrepreneur. And I dont blame them. I failed time after time, constantly riding a wild rollercoaster of getting my hopes up, falling into depression, then launching a new project that was followed by failure and another bout of depression.

- Health and Fitness It took me years to change certain unhealthy habits and build a fit physique. For years, despite exercising religiously several times a week, if you looked at my body, youd never think I went to the gym at all. In fact, pretty much every new gym-goer had better results after a couple of months than I did after years of exercise, sacrifices, and countless hours spent researching how to turn my fitness around.

- Relationships For years, my extreme shyness prevented me from having a normal social life. Imagine a guy who radiates total awkwardness when merely talking to a woman about a neutral topic. Yeah, that was me.

- Sports and Learning New Skills I spent a year learning how to play tennis, only to realize that I was a hopeless case. I spent weeks learning Arabic only to discover that when I visited an Arabic-speaking country, almost nobody wanted to speak Arabic with me, let alone be impressed by my non-existent skills. I tried to learn how to invest in stock options only to realize that I couldnt even understand how fees were calculated.

To say that Im good buddies with failure would be an understatement. Fortunately, this also means I learned a lot about it. My intention for this book is to help you get more comfortable with struggles and failure and aid you in reaching your goals.

Throughout the book Ill use the word failure or struggle to define any kind of a negative event that sets you back. Whenever I use these words, please think of them in a broad sense. The concepts dont apply only to failing your diet or an exam. Well talk about dealing with adversity, handling a crisis, overcoming a failure due to personal deficiencies and bouncing back after making stupid mistakes (Im a certified expert in this one!).