Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn Conclusion

Hi there, everybody! I'm going to start this post off with a big thank you to everybody who's been reading this series and commenting on the posts. It has meant so much to me! And I also thank John C. Maxwell for his inspiring words and stories in his book Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn.

Visit John C. Maxwell's leadership blog here.

This was the first time I've done a little "book journey" on Smiles No Matter, and reading Maxwell's book was a good start to hopefully do more book journeys in the future with you guys. I've learned a lot and have started thinking about my worth as an individual and what I want to take out of life on a wider scale. Also, doing this has allowed me see a new perspective on life and happiness, so I have many new ideas for the future!

Thinking about life can get pretty heavy for some, but as we come to a state of maturity, it isn't all that bad anymore. Instead of seeing failures, pain, and sorrow, we also are able to see the lessons that come with them. I also think that going through hard times leads us to appreciate the good things that we would otherwise take for granted.

Let's have a brief glance over the topics we've covered in this series:

1. Humility: The Spirit of Learning
2. Reality: The Foundation of Learning
3. Responsibility: The first Step of Learning
4. Improvement: The Focus of Learning
5. Hope: The Motivation of Learning
6. Teachability: The Pathway of Learning
7. Adversity: The Catalyst for Learning
8. Problems: Opportunities for Learning
9. Bad Experiences: The Perspective for Learning
10. Change: The Price of Learning
11. Maturity: The Value of Learning

Now with the entire series done, here are some questions I have: 

• What was your favorite part about learning about learning? 
• In Maxwell's final chapter, he says that life isn't about winning, but about learning. Would you agree with his statement? Why or why not?
• Of these past weeks, have you experienced any growth from self-reflection and thinking about the challenges you've faced in life?

Please let me know your answers in the comments below!

As for myself, reading this book has inspired me to learn to appreciate more in life. I personally went through a series of unfortunate experiences last year, and reading this and reflecting upon it has helped me learn to live with the pain and move on. It's also helped me find more patience and poise when dealing with myself. 

I wouldn't say that this is the best book in the world, or that I would never have found what I did without reading it--but it is a handy guide and an easy read for anyone looking for a bit of light self-improvement. It's pretty basic, so it's a good place to start. 

Thank you again for joining me on this journey, and please comment and subscribe for future updates!

Smile on,

-Riley XO

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn (VI)

Hello, everybody! Since I was busy celebrating the Fourth of July last Friday, I am posting my reflection on the eleventh and twelfth chapters from John C. Maxwell's Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn today. This week, we are looking at change, the price of learning, and maturity, the value of learning.

Quote of the week: "One of life's important questions is 'Who am I?' But even more important is 'Who am I becoming?'" (John Maxwell).

I had to appreciate Maxwell's chapter on change because I discussed it a bit on last week's post on dealing with stress (funny how a lot of things can tie in together). Change comes in different forms, but as I read through his words, I thought a lot about change of heart and attitude.

There is a quotation by Charles R. Swindoll that says, "We cannot change our past. We cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude."

This is one major theme that comes up in philosophy. I actually wrote on change of attitude a while ago in the post "Finding the Good in Every Day." Change is a difficult subject to write about because it is often triggered by something, and it is also often unexpected. So, how do we conscientiously change ourselves to become better people?

Well, a lot of this comes with everything we have been talking about so far in the series. It's about being open-minded and aware, embracing your life (whether you're in a good part or bad), accepting that you're not perfect, and resolving to grow stronger with every step you take. It's about looking for feedback. What could you do to be a better friend, co-worker, student, boss, sister, parent? It's never losing sight of hope, and remembering that although your situations may be bleak, you still have the choice to keep going--to keep pursuing happiness, love, and joy.

I often associate a positive change in attitude with finding peace in one's heart. For me, a person who has found peace carries a sense of dignity in his or herself. S/he accepts both the good and the bad with grace and esteem, like a warrior who is prepared for anything and everything at all times.

Maxwell focuses on change in the more general sense. What changes must we make in our lives? Change yourself; change your attitude; change your nongrowing friends; determine to live differently than average people; and unlearn what you know so you can learn what you don't know (189-194). Basically, be in an environment that fosters growth, innovation, and sincere desire to make the world a better place. It all starts in your own heart.

As change occurs, maturity is reached. Maxwell says to keep in mind the following truths if you long to gain the true value of learning (199-208):

1. Maturity is the result of finding the benefit in the loss.
2. Maturity is the result of learning to feed the right emotions. I personally think about my high school Geography teacher whenever this idea comes up. I was pretty shy my freshman year, and before I had to present to the class, she told me not to let it get in my way. Even if you're having a bad day, you just need to put on a smile, and sometimes force yourself to be positive and do the right thing. Even if it meant faking it for the time being, these actions would come to define character. Sometimes, you need to work backwards to find happiness.
3. Maturity is the result of learning to develop good habits. What are some of the habits you've established to reach your goals?
4. Maturity is the result of learning to sacrifice today to succeed tomorrow. (Sacrifice is a pretty scary word for us these days, but it's a must. I'll discuss this in a future post!)
5. Maturity is the result of learning to earn respect for yourself and others. (I'm also planning to discuss this in the future, so stay tuned!)

So look at yourself, and compare who you are now to the model of maturity. What are you going to change today?

Smile on,

-Riley XO

P.S.

Thank you for reading! The last post for the series Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn will be out on Friday at the usual time. Please don't forget to comment and subscribe! I look forward to seeing you again and have a great day!

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn (V)

Hello, hello! I apologize for failing to post last week for our series, but it's great to see you here today! We're currently on Chapters 9 and 10 in John C. Maxwell's Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn in our series, which focus on dealing with problems and bad experiences.

"Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience" (Denis Waitley).

Have any of you ever had to deal with huge, snowballing problems that Maxwell describes? Accurately assessing and then dealing with problems is just what everybody needs to do in order to lead successful lives and grow. They're a part of daily life, so learn to enjoy facing them; enjoy the journey toward a goal (yep, I'm thinking of The Alchemist).

Maxwell's way to successfully overcoming problems and learning from them are (153-156):

1. Anticipate. Be ready for something to be challenging as you go into something. 
2. Communicate. Don't be afraid to talk to people about your problem--oftentimes, problems involve other people from relationships to collaborating on a group project.
3. Evaluate. When it comes to evaluating a problem, more problems can arise when we overestimate or underestimate it. So taking all the facts in with a grain of salt is crucial to solving the problem efficiently.
4. Appreciate. What would life be like if we could all be successful winners without ever having to work for anything? It's ostensibly nice, but just think about it for a moment. 

Maxwell compares running into problems with an eagle flying in turbulent winds. Turbulent winds cause the eagle to fly higher, they give the eagle a larger view. Turbulent winds lift the eagle above harassment. Turbulent winds allow the eagle to use less effort, turbulent winds allow the eagle to stay up longer. Turbulent winds help the eagle to fly faster (156-157). Be like the eagle and soar to great heights as you address every problem that comes your way.

Although we do our best to get through our problems, we still run into bad experiences. I've sure had my share of poop thrown at me, and although we face different forms of pain you've probably had a bunch of lame things happen to you too. It is so easy to let certain bad experiences get you down, but it's during these moments that our strength shines out the brightest. 

Maxwell believes that the most important thing to do during a rough time is to put your losses into perspective (162-171).

• Accept your humanness. Nobody is perfect.If something bad happens, it's not because you messed up worse than your friends or that you did anything inadequately. Life has its ups and downs, right? So as we relish and bask in the ups, we need to learn to at least accept and maybe even appreciate the downs. 
• Learn to laugh at yourself and life. At least try to smile. It'll make the biggest difference; try it yourself next time.
• Don't base your self-worth on a bad experience, don't feel sorry for yourself, and consider your failures as a process to learn and improve. It's kind of giving yourself a bit of tough love. Look at things objectively, and you'll be able to pull yourself out of the rut faster than if you mope around for days over getting stuck.
• Don't give up. Because you're worth it!
• Don't let your bad experience become worse experiences. I admit that I'm guilty of doing this. When I went through some hard times, I would often replay those events over and over again in my head. Instead of living my darkest days once, I ended up reliving them a countless number of times, and doing this caused even more damage. Maxwell also focuses on learning as the punches come. If you don't realize what you did wrong, you could end up literally reliving the same bad experience again and again in different forms.
• Let the bad experience lead you to a good experience. Darkness exists, and so does light. Find the light.

So this concludes all I have to say about Maxwell's ninth and tenth chapters. What did you think? Let me know in the comments below! Also, please subscribe to Smiles No Matter for future updates. Next week, we'll be studying the eleventh and twelfth chapters next Friday. Hope to see you then! 

Smile on,

-Riley XO

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn (IV)

Good evening, and thank you for stopping by. Today is Friday the 13th, the worst day of the year. How have you been surviving so far? Well, if it's been crummy so far, hopefully your day will get a little better with today's post. Even if you're not superstitious and your day has been great, I sincerely wish that this will be the little layer of glitter on the birthday card.

This week's post is special to me because it focuses on two parts of life that this blog is dedicated to inspire: daily appreciation and learning, and growth in the face of adversity. As you'll see, I really loved Maxwell's discussion on adversity and end up quoting him a lot today, so I hope you'll feel as inspired as I am after reading it. Please leave your thoughts and reactions in the comments; I look forward to seeing what you think!

Quote of the week: "Lord, deliver me from the man who never makes a mistake, and also from the man who makes the same mistakes twice" (William Mayo).

I personally believe that Maxwell chose the most underrated word for the title of Chapter 7 in Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn. "Teachability." What, Maxwell? To be honest, I actually wasn't expecting this chapter to be as cool as it turned out to be. "Teachability" sort of had this connotation of a pupil getting a lecture, or a dog capable of learning new tricks--but we know that life isn't like that! But actually, Maxwell is discussing a greater, constantly moving spirit of inquisitiveness, curiosity, open-mindedness, and consideration.

Teachable people have an attitude conducive to learning, possess a beginner's mindset, take long, hard looks in the mirror, encourage others to speak into their lives, and learn something new every day (109-118). So you see, teachable people are the ones who not merely able to learn, but actively seek to discover. From Maxwell's description, I picture a society living by Aristotle's philosophy built around eudaimonia (which is translated to mean a "flourishing life"), each person finding her/his whole life's worth, growing both from his/her own experiences and others' stories. Not a single day is wasted; every occurrence is valuable. People aren't just surviving, but thriving!

To become teachable, Maxwell gives us a road map from 119-123:

1. Prepare. John Wooden said, "When opportunity comes, it's too late to prepare." Maxwell tells us to take a breath "each morning or evening before thinking through what your day will be like and where the greatest potential opportunities lie for you to learn" (120).
2. Contemplate. Think about what you observed, read, and experienced through the day, and analyze what you can learn from any mistakes you made, from somebody you met, or from what you talked about.
3. Apply. It takes a lot of discipline to apply what you've learned. It's kind of like trying to find a way to use a word you've just learned in context. But those chances you get show what you've learned. 

In the previous weeks, I've just kind of picked one of the quotes from the reading to highlight as the quote of the week and let you guys digest it on your own. But I wanted to put in my two cents' worth this time because I think that this one is especially cool. Since it's so cool, here it is again!

Lord, deliver me from the man who never makes a mistake, and also from the man who makes mistakes twice."

Let's face it: Nothing teaches a lesson the way a mistake does. (What is life if not for the dichotomies of successes and failures, of love and evil, of jubilation and sorrow? You can't have one without the other, right?) William Mayo makes the point that it is okay to make mistakes--it is actually good to make mistakes here and there because that's how we grow. But it's making mistakes twice that indicates that we're doing something wrong. By following the road map above, we become fierce, unafraid of failure, and then in the wake of adversity, we will be ready to learn and discover.

Adversity. When was the last time you faced it? Perhaps you're going through it now? Well, here are some words to inspire you the next time it comes around: "Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and then become more extraordinary because of it" (Robertson Davies).

I would like to draw out an excerpt from the book to demonstrate the effects of adversity, in Maxwell's words:

There's a story about a young woman who complained to her father about her life and how hard things were for her. The adversity of life was overwhelming her, and she wanted to give up.
     As he listened, her father filled three pots with water and brought them to a boil on the stove. Into the first he put carrot slices, into the second he put eggs, and into the third he put ground coffee beans. He let them simmer for a few minutes and then placed the carrots, eggs, and coffee before her in three containers.
     "What do you see?" he asked.
     "Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.
     He asked her to feel the carrots. She picked up a piece and it squished between her fingers. He then asked her to examine an egg. She picked one up, broke the shell, and saw the hard-boiled egg inside it. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. She smiled, as she tasted its rich flavor.
     "So what does it mean?" she asked.
     "Each ingredient was subjected to the same thing--boiling water--but each reacted differently. The carrots went in hard. But after they were in the boiling water, they became soft. The egg was fragile with a thin outer shell and a liquid interior. But it became hardened. The ground coffee beans changed little. But they changed the water for the better.
     "Which are you," he asked. "When you face adversity, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?"
     Life is filled with adversity. We can be squashed by it. We can allow it to make us hard. Or we can make the best of it, improving the situation (131-132).

 

How can we be like the coffee? We look for the advantages of adversity by keeping these things in mind (132-142):

1. Adversity introduces us to ourselves if we're open to it.
2. Adversity is a better teacher than success if we want to learn from it. 
3. Adversity opens doors for new opportunities if we want to learn from it.
4. Adversity can signal a coming positive transition if we respond correctly to it.
5. Adversity brings profit as well as pain if we expect it and plan for it. 
6. Adversity writes our story and if our response is right, the story will be good.

In the wake of adversity, it is so easy to want to retreat, to want to go hide and mend the wounds. But we have the choice to keep going. But not to just keep going--to run right up to the adversity--and then to push straight through it and emerge back to the light stronger than ever before.

If we consider the six points above, we see that adversity is a blessing, but it is totally up to us to count it as one.

Bonus quote of the week: "Some people treat adversity as a stepping-stone, others as a tombstone" (Maxwell).

Smile on,

-Riley XO

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn (III)

Hello, thank you for visiting Smiles No Matter today! This is our third week into our reading journey through John C. Maxwell's book Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn. To see the previous weeks' posts, please click on the following links and read up on those, because I think that they contain some blocks that build toward today's post:
    ~ Introduction
    ~ Week 1
    ~ Week 2

We are about halfway through the series so far! Reading this book has helped guide me in self reflection and I've found some parts of it to be valuable while I reflect on my past and consider how to go about my future. And I think that this series has been a lot of fun, so I'm hoping to be able to do another one based on a book again later on. If you have any book recommendations that you'd like to see on this blog, please let me know in the comments below!

Quote of the week: "When you cease to be better, you cease to be good. When you stop growing, you cease to be useful--a weed in the garden of prosperity.... We are what we are today because we were what we were yesterday. And our thoughts today determine our actions tomorrow" (George Knox).

This week, Maxwell is addressing the following question in Chapters 5 and 6: Why and how do we do all of this learning stuff, anyway?

Learning in the face of a mistake or tragedy is absolutely crucial, because during those times, usually there is very little good to draw out from them if not for the lessons we learn. However, Maxwell argues that learning should be an everyday thing, that we should try our best every day to make ourselves better. Why? Because we have hope.

I loved Maxwell's answers to the question, "What does hope do for mankind?" on pages 90-91:

• Hope shines brightest when the hour is darkest.
• Hope motivates when discouragement comes.
• Hope energizes when the body is tired.
• Hope sweetens when the bitterness bites.
• Hope sings when all melodies are gone.
• Hope listens for answers when no one is talking. 
• Hope climbs over obstacles when no one is helping.
• Hope endures hardship when no one is caring. 
• Hope smiles confidently when no one is laughing.
• Hope reaches for answers when no one is asking.
• Hope presses toward victory when no one is encouraging.
• Hope dares to give when no one is sharing.
• Hope brings the victory when no one is winning.

Hope is hard to define, but I would say that it's the little voice that tells you to keep going even when everything else around you is screaming at you to quit. I would also venture to say that hope is a sort of combination between love and faith. Losses lead us to question our own worth, so we need to find that love and courage to believe in ourselves despite the setback. We somehow find faith that there will be a better tomorrow despite the pain. This is hope.

Maxwell presents three steps to cultivate hope:

1. Realize that hope is a choice.
2. Change your thinking. (I really liked the excerpt from Who Says the Fat Lady Has to Sing?. What did you think of it?)
3. Win some small victories. 

Positive thinking helps us believe that we can do great things, and that belief in ourselves is all we need to move closer and closer toward our goals. 

Then, comes the doing. There is a method to learning. First, we must develop our senses of hope, humility, and responsibility. Then comes the actual learning, right? Maxwell makes a pretty self-evident point that the focus of learning is improvement (88). It sounds like an obvious thing, but sometimes we need the reminder every now and then. Have you ever asked yourself why you do something? Well, let's hope you do it because you believe it makes you better in one way or another--otherwise, why would you be doing it? 

Improvement is something that does not come easily. Improvement in all aspects require us to move our of our comfort zones, to accept that we're not perfect, to do things the right (often, harder) way, and to commit to it daily (78-84). Consider how we develop our artistic, technical, and physical abilities. Often through hours of practice a day, right? Well, here we're also talking about improving our mind and spirit. Do you sometimes neglect to dedicate time to your mind and soul? In this busy day and age, I know I do.

For instance, I have found that I need and want to develop my patience and compassion for others. It is something I must reflect upon constantly in order to keep myself on track, but yet it is so easy to forget all about it!

Maxwell believes that it is necessary to make improvement intentional. And in order to intentionally improve, he lays out the following steps:

1. Decide you are worth improving.
2. Pick an area to improve. (You can't improve everything all at once!)
3. Find opportunities to improve in the wake of your losses.

I think that the first step is essentially having hope for yourself, the belief that with some work you will be better tomorrow than you are today. I agree with Maxwell--you are totally worth improving! And since we do have the ability to get better and are blessed with new opportunities each day, don't we owe it to ourselves?

Next week, Maxwell is going to get more in depth with improvement, more methods to do it. But for this week's reading, I've found the renewed awe in the power of hope and look forward to Chapters 7 and 8! Please visit again next Friday for a discussion on "Teachability: The Pathway of Learning" and "Adversity: The Catalyst for Learning" and subscribe to Smiles No Matter so you'll never miss an update! Have a wonderful weekend!

Smile on,

-Riley XO

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn (II)

TGIF! How are you? I'm doing well and have been keeping busy as always. A friend's graduation was on Monday and I had a lovely time visiting her. What was one of the highlights of your week? Let me know in the comments!

I really enjoyed last week's reading from the book Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn by John C. Maxwell. It was a great way to start the series! (To read my reflection and some others' comments, please follow this link.) Today, we'll be reflecting on Chapters 3 and 4, which I think go hand-in-hand perfectly because they are about reality and responsibility.

Quote of the week: "It's easier to go from failure to success than it is from excuses to success" (John C. Maxwell).

The whole discussion on humility and the spirit of learning last week helped set a solid base for this week's focus on "Reality: The Foundation of Learning" and "Responsibility: The First Step of Learning." Humility is absolutely necessary in order to see the reality of the situation and thereafter shoulder responsibility for the pain and hurt. We already established that pride is ultimately a blinding force that inhibits us from seeing what we did wrong. Instead, prideful people tend to live in a state of denial and blame others for their misery.

It's important, then, to see the problem, think about it as objectively as possible, and then accept that you were responsible for a measure of the consequences.
How can we see situations objectively?

Maxwell says that people who look at the world realistically know these things:

1. Life is difficult for everyone.
2. Life is more difficult for some than for others.

Having a faith that guides me helps me accept this. Why do we encounter pain, loss, and hardship? Because we live in an imperfect world. But just because bad things happen, it doesn't mean that the reality is that we should wallow in self-pity or give up. I've posted before that "The world is full of nice people. If you can't find one, be one." If you look at things realistically, you'll see that there are some things you cannot control. But what you can control is what truly matters. You can decide how to react, what to take away from the bad, and you can decide to stand up for what is right and good.

Responsibility for a situation can be difficult to take because often there are extrinsic and intrinsic factors that often influence it. Psychologists define "locus of control" as how people attribute the causes of the things that happen to them. People with an external locus of control believe that their situations are caused mostly by their surroundings. Those with an internal locus of control, on the other hand, believe that their situations are largely caused due to their own choices and actions. "Which group is more successful? The group that takes personal responsibility. Which people are more content? The ones who take personal responsibility. Which people learn from their mistakes and keep growing and improving? The people who take responsibility" (62-63).

I thought that his list on page 63 was very powerful when he argues that having an external locus of control essentially gives away the choice to control our lives:

Is it true that hating, loving, ignoring, hearing, despairing, hoping--all of these are up to us? What truly matters--our character--is completely our choice. 

As we begin to realize this, we begin to:

1. Take our first step in learning.
2. See things in their proper perspective.
3. Stop repeating our failures.
4. Grow stronger.
5. Back up our words with our behavior.

So, what are some steps we can start taking to look at our problems realistically and take the fair amount of responsibility?

Last week, we looked at the Examen to help us reflect and pray for a humble, learning spirit. 

Today, I have a new set of questions that we can ask in the face of some bad situations to help us see what we need to and learn:

• [In the case of an argument] Why did they do what they did? What would I have done if I were in their shoes? Is there a better way I could have approached the situation?
• [In the case of a bad habit] Are my priorities straight, and what is the evidence for this? What do I dedicate my time to, and what is taking up all of my time? Am I leading a healthy, balanced life? Do I have enough time to spend with friends and family?
• [In the case of a death] It is appropriate to mourn, and missing them is inevitable. But, if they were watching me from up above, how would they want to see me? Would they want to see me smile and find peace?
• [In the case of failure] What were my mistakes? What could I have done better? Why did I want this in the first place? Why should I try again? How should I change my strategy this time?

So this concludes all I have to say about Maxwell's third and fourth chapters. What did you think? Let me know in the comments below! Also, please subscribe to Smiles No Matter for future updates. Next week, we'll be studying the fifth and sixth chapters next Friday. Hope to see you then! 

Smile on,

-Riley XO

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn (I)

Hello there everyone! I am sorry for missing Friday contrary to my original plans. There were some personal things I had to deal with and I was quite busy working too! But here we are on a lovely Saturday night to discuss this week's reading: Chapters 1 and 2 from Maxwell's Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn.

Quote of the week: "Humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less" (Ken Blanchard). 

Dealing with loss and failure are really our only opportunities to develop character--to foster greatness. It is difficult to appreciate what you have in life if you've never had anything taken away from you before, and Maxwell also makes an excellent point that winning is an easy cycle: you set your goal, you work hard, you achieve your goal, repeat. This cycle is a great one to be caught up in if you're in it, but it's predictable. Losing, on the other hand, is unpredictable, is often unwarranted, and it comes in many different forms that must be dealt in a various amount of different ways. Our most powerful and important lessons from life are learned from our own suffering.

Actually, Friedrich Nietzsche said, "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." Nietzsche is a fascinating philosopher with many radical beliefs, but one of his major points is that greatness is achieved through suffering. Characters like Abraham Lincoln, Ludwig van Beethoven, Vincent van Gogh, and many more arrived to their places as historical and artistic heroes primarily because they suffered and bore mountains of pain and agony. So, Nietzsche argues that in order to become the "uberman," one must seek to find strife.

Maxwell, however, emphasizes not the quantity of our pain or losses, but the quality in which we deal with them.

This week, we focus on humility, the spirit of learning.

He outlines four reasons concerning why humility fosters the right attitude for learning from our losses in pages 25-33:

1. Humility allows us to possess a true perspective of ourselves and life.
2. Humility enables us to learn and grow in the face of losses.
3. Humility allows us to let go of perfection and keep trying.
4. Humility allows us to make the most of our mistakes.

I think that the other fellow Type-A personalities out there will wrestle with some of these ideas just as I did while reflecting on the chapter. Type-A people tend to be high-achievers, and high-achievers tend to take pride in all they've accomplished. However, pride can be damaging because it often blinds us to our own flaws--which you can see problem considering that our flaws are often the cause of the mistakes we make in life.

Humility keeps a person calm in the face of a setback, and also in the face of victory as well. See, humility is so important because it keeps in mind that we are not perfect. Imperfection must be accepted as a part of us all, and there is always room for some sort of improvement.

Maxwell uses the case study of Samuel F. B. Morse to draw an example of where humility in the face of loss led to learning, and thus achievement.

samuelmorse.net

This was a young man who attended Yale University and excelled in a variety of challenging classes. His dream was to be an artist, and when his parents allowed him to go pursue painting, and he traveled all over the place when people commissioned him to paint portraits. He was in Concord when he fell in love. He wrote to his parents:

"She is very beautiful, and yet no coquetry, she is modest quite to diffidence and yet frank and open hearted...Suffice it to say we are engaged...never was a human being so blest as I am, and yet what an ungrateful wretch have I been; pray for me that I may have a grateful heart for I deserve nothing but adversity, and yet have the most unbounded prosperity."

They were married, and Morse found great success in his painting career. He also used some of his knowledge to help develop a water pump for fire engines and a marble-cutting machine to carve sculptures.

Morse was in New York working on a painting in 1825 when he received word that his wife was ill. Although he immediately rushed home, by the time he had arrived, she had already died and he discovered that he had also missed her funeral. Can you imagine the distress and grief he must have suffered?

His loss led him to search for ways to improve the painstakingly slow communication that existed during that time. Seven years later, he developed Morse Code, which revolutionized communication.

Nonetheless, he still maintained the spirit of humility, and he said, "I have made a valuable application of electricity not because I was superior to other men but solely because God, who meant it for mankind, must reveal it to someone and he was pleased to reveal it to me."

Maxwell comments, "With that attitude, no wonder he was able to bounce back from his losses, learn, and grow. He possessed the spirit of learning. And we would do well to obtain it too" (35).

So you can see, humility in the face of adversary can lead to great achievement!

However, I wanted to mention that there is a fine line between self-confidence and arrogance. Maxwell touches on the difference in the second chapter, but I wanted to explore a bit more on my own how we can obtain a spirit in which humility and self-confidence can coexist in harmony.

How do we foster a humble soul?

Well, I approach this question in the same way that I would approach many other "How..." and "Why..." questions: through prayer and meditation.

Let's start to develop some humility and still maintain a sense of self-confidence today by just taking 5-10 minutes answering these questions every day this next week:

• In general, how was my day today (or yesterday)?
• What am I grateful for?
• What have I done wrong? How could I have done better?
• What am I going to do tomorrow (or today) to help right a wrong, or to make something better?

After answering these questions, let's ask God to help in finding the strength to act better in the future. 

There's no quickfire way to develop humility, but let's make it a goal this next week to follow this meditation and see if we notice any changes in our hearts and attitudes. 

(Note: These questions are taken from a variation of the Jesuit Examen, which is a guide for prayer/meditation that has several variations. Please see this post to read my response to practicing the Examen for a week. For other variations of the Examen and to learn more, click here.)

So this concludes all I have to say about Maxwell's first and second chapters. What did you think? Let me know in the comments below! Also, please subscribe to Smiles No Matter for future updates. Next week, we'll be studying the third and fourth chapters on Friday. Hope to see you then! 

Smile on,

-Riley XO

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn (Intro)

Happy Friday! So upon starting summer vacation I've found myself with a lot of free time. It's kind of rough for somebody like me since I like keeping busy and go absolutely crazy when I feel like I haven't done anything productive in a day. To help alleviate my anxiety, I'm planning to use all this extra time to read and write. But, what fun is doing all of this on your own? Today I'd like to introduce you guys to Smiles No Matter's first "book journey."

It's been a dream of mine for quite a while now to do some sort of book club on the blog, and I'm ecstatic to be able to do one this summer! The book I would like to delve into, Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn by John C. Maxwell, is about things that I think would be relevant to my own life and the blog's mission because it's all about dealing with loss and failure--and growing from the tumultuous experiences!

Hopefully this will be a sort of spiritual journey that we will be able to share together. The book is a little more than 200 pages and is 13 chapters long. For this book journey, I will be writing my takeaways and reactions to two chapters on every Friday. Therefore, I'll be writing my commentaries on the first and second chapters next week. If you would like to join me on this book journey, please feel free to do so!

There are many ways to reflect on what you read, but for this particular study I would like to focus on the following questions:

• What is my initial feeling upon reading these chapters?
• Do I agree with Maxwell's primary ideas? Why or why not?
• How does this apply to my approach to my own problems?
• How does this apply to my approach to helping others with their problems?

I am truly hoping that there will be a good takeaway from this journey and that we can share it together! Please subscribe (check out the right hand sidebar!) to keep up with my commentaries on Maxwell's book and never miss an update. Look forward to seeing you again on next week!

Smile on,

-Riley XO