When you do a mistake do you beat yourself up about it? Do you engage in negative self talk? After Thomas Edison seven hundredth unsuccessful attempt to invent the electric light, he was asked by a New York Times reporter: “how does it feel to have failed seven hundred times?” The great inventor responded with a classic example of a positive perspective: “I have not failed once; I have succeeded in proving that those seven hundred ways will not work. When I have eliminated all the ways that will not work I will find the way that will work”. What Edison recognize is that in order to succeed you must first failt. Truly successful people are those who don’t let failures hold them back from achieving their goal. Look at all your mistakes and failures as learning experiences and think each time how you can improve next time rather than why you made the mistake. If something doesn’t work, try something else. Remember that the past doesn’t equal the future, so even though you failed in the past, it doesn’t mean you will fail in the future. Successful people recognize that success is what happens when you are done failing. Every mistake or failure is a learning opportunity in disguise. Failure is a requisite part of the learning process, not the end of the learning process.