Do you all know Bum Phillips? Oail Andrew “Bum” Phillips. NFL Football coach for eleven years for the now defunct Houston Oilers and finished with the New Orleans Saints. Born in 1923, his birthday is this Sunday. This guy was so normal and so fun and you could see he enjoyed what he did. With just a few more wins than losses professionally, he knew about losing too. But to use a football metaphor, he scored a touchdown with this,

“You fail all the time, but you aren’t a failure until you start blaming someone else.”

Whether you run late on a project or fall short of a percentage of something or a person you poured your every effort into abandons you…wherever you have failed, make it yours. Bum says when you blame someone else is when you become a failure. The personification of fail. Yeeeech! I don’t want that.

So when these “failures” come along, remember that they are only temporary, treat them as such. Take responsibility and prepare for the next time. And please keep this in perspective, what we are talking about is your failures being blamed on someone else by you. The failures we are talking about are those where you have responsibility. Others fail, they impact us but that is a separate issue. You don’t have to take responsibility for everyone’s failures. Only yours. And then, as Joe Gibbs said yesterday, “Ignore them.” Take responsibility, learn from them, plan for the next time and then ignore them.

Today has some challenges ahead, get back to them and help others Make it a GREAT DAY!!!