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Seasons greetings!  I hope you are enjoying this magic time of year.  This post brings the six part 09-10 holiday series to a close as the special time of year they honor begin fading into memory.

The theme and dedication of this year’s holiday series is children.  We ask what is it that the young ones can teach us? This week I ask:

If you fall down do you
get right back up?

For all the times I stubbed my toe or skinned half my leg wiping out on the bike! One summer I had a scab inches in width and length on my leg for half a month. Didn’t slow me down. I law school spring I stepped on my foot funny while playing basket ball. As an adult I let it interrupt my gym schedule for weeks! What was different about me as an adult?

So yes, getting right back up seems like advice to consider and follow more often. A client of mine told me a story about starting her business and going to the bank to set up checking. It didn’t go so well. The banker explained the various options and she didn’t know what she wanted and hadn’t really thought it through. Six MONTHS passed before she went back and got it sorted out. Six months of business lost for not getting right back up.

Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture writes:

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, a cliché. I love clichés. A lot of them, anyway. I have great respect for the old chestnuts. As I see it, the reason clichés are repeated so often is because they’re so often right on the money…

When I was a senior in high school, I applied to Brown University and didn’t get it. I was on the wait list. I called the admissions office until they eventually decided they might as well accept me. They saw how badly I wanted in. Tenacity got me over the brick wall…

Brick walls are there for a reason. And once you get over them — even if someone has practically had to throw you over — it can be helpful to others to tll them how you did it.

Peace