The Audacity of Failure.

I am not talking about the fake strutting of the wannabe peacock with the inflated ego and everything else embellished. I refer to the quiet confidence of the man (or woman) who has confronted the toughest adversity one can endure, overcome it and survived to tell the story.  There is truth in the saying, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."  The confidence of knowing one's ability to fight, to withstand pressure, and to win, is a confidence hard to replicate without being in genuine battle (or danger) and virtually impossible to bluff.  This is what it means to be "battle-tested."  And men and women with this confidence are often the quietest in the room yet their words, few in number, carry the most impact.  You see, those who have walked the walk, rarely feel the urge to talk the talk.
When you have felt this congruence, you can feel like you can handle anything life throws at you. While you may not succeed, you pretty much know that you will survive. That assuredness, one borne not from arrogance but from actual experience (and sometimes the scars of the battle), sets those men and women leagues apart from the competition. Indeed, it is a strong competitive advantage. Each of us has finite energy, finite limits. Most people expend their energy identifying and coping with anxiety.  Those of us with the confidence of which I have written do not feel the fear, do not feel any anxiety, and this allows a savings of residual inner energy, the better with which to deploy against the external task at hand. It is easy to see how this is a huge competitive advantage in any field. ......Read More

Thank You
Ziad K Abdelnour