True or False?

[Eleven]

On my mission we had a mission pres that i didnt fully agree with at all times, but still sustained and did what i was told. I had two mission presidents, and the second was by far the one to relate to me, focusing more on Part member work and working through the members like the preach my gospel explains..
anyways, this first mission pres was very "be a man" kinda guy and also was a lawyer, and so in and out he kinda took what he wanted out of the white handbook and preach my gospel and the rest he made his own. Anyways, heres what im getting at.

He had this quote that SO many of my rm buddies love, and it doesnt even make any doctrinal sense to me whatsoever.. His quote was

"If you dont make a success out of everything you do, then you will never make a success out of anything you do"

What i get out of this is "If youre not successful at everything you try, your just unsuccessful, period."

One of the mission buddies posted this on his facebook and I tried to ask him "Hey what im getting out of this is *what i just typed*, and he deleted all my posts lol.. so i guess it was a soft spot.

What my question is; What do you get out of that quote? Does anyone else take it for a hasty generalization fallacy that one instance of unsuccessful shouldnt ever mean your damned from ever being successful? Or is it the bad taste in my mouth from this mission president thats getting in the way of me seeing it?
EVERYTHING is a BIG word, and so is ANYTHING. I concluded to them that if this statement were true, i could say that because i was unsuccessful at making my self breakfast without making a mess, anyone could conclude i will never be successful at paintball because of it lol..
i use extremes to help paint the picture, but you get what i mean.

i need commentary. let me know

[Dravin]

It would state that if one ever got lost (not being successful at navigation) then one is unsuccessful period. Tried to spell a word correctly and failed? Tried to do a mathematics problem correctly and failed? Tried to make a meal but burned it? You are a doctor who tried to save someone but they died? Politician who ever lost a campaign? You will never be successful at anything.

I suppose one could debate over just how narrowly to define success and what qualifies as "what you do" though.

[Vort]

Originally Posted by Eleven

On my mission we had a mission pres that i didnt fully agree with at all times, but still sustained and did what i was told. I had two mission presidents, and the second was by far the one to relate to me, focusing more on Part member work and working through the members like the preach my gospel explains..
anyways, this first mission pres was very "be a man" kinda guy and also was a lawyer, and so in and out he kinda took what he wanted out of the white handbook and preach my gospel and the rest he made his own. Anyways, heres what im getting at.

He had this quote that SO many of my rm buddies love, and it doesnt even make any doctrinal sense to me whatsoever.. His quote was

"If you dont make a success out of everything you do, then you will never make a success out of anything you do"

What i get out of this is "If youre not successful at everything you try, your just unsuccessful, period."

One of the mission buddies posted this on his facebook and I tried to ask him "Hey what im getting out of this is *what i just typed*, and he deleted all my posts lol.. so i guess it was a soft spot.

What my question is; What do you get out of that quote? Does anyone else take it for a hasty generalization fallacy that one instance of unsuccessful shouldnt ever mean your damned from ever being successful? Or is it the bad taste in my mouth from this mission president thats getting in the way of me seeing it?
EVERYTHING is a BIG word, and so is ANYTHING. I concluded to them that if this statement were true, i could say that because i was unsuccessful at making my self breakfast without making a mess, anyone could conclude i will never be successful at paintball because of it lol..
i use extremes to help paint the picture, but you get what i mean.

i need commentary. let me know

Another way of interpreting his words is, "If you don't make overall success out of your life as a whole, none of your individual small successes are meaningful."

But I agree, it's kind of a stupid saying.

[Traveler]

Originally Posted by Eleven

On my mission we had a mission pres that i didnt fully agree with at all times, but still sustained and did what i was told. I had two mission presidents, and the second was by far the one to relate to me, focusing more on Part member work and working through the members like the preach my gospel explains..
anyways, this first mission pres was very "be a man" kinda guy and also was a lawyer, and so in and out he kinda took what he wanted out of the white handbook and preach my gospel and the rest he made his own. Anyways, heres what im getting at.

He had this quote that SO many of my rm buddies love, and it doesnt even make any doctrinal sense to me whatsoever.. His quote was

"If you dont make a success out of everything you do, then you will never make a success out of anything you do"

What i get out of this is "If youre not successful at everything you try, your just unsuccessful, period."

One of the mission buddies posted this on his facebook and I tried to ask him "Hey what im getting out of this is *what i just typed*, and he deleted all my posts lol.. so i guess it was a soft spot.

What my question is; What do you get out of that quote? Does anyone else take it for a hasty generalization fallacy that one instance of unsuccessful shouldnt ever mean your damned from ever being successful? Or is it the bad taste in my mouth from this mission president thats getting in the way of me seeing it?
EVERYTHING is a BIG word, and so is ANYTHING. I concluded to them that if this statement were true, i could say that because i was unsuccessful at making my self breakfast without making a mess, anyone could conclude i will never be successful at paintball because of it lol..
i use extremes to help paint the picture, but you get what i mean.

i need commentary. let me know

I love the saying - and I believe Christ taught this principle - Have faith and be believing and all things will turn out for your good.

I believe the problem is not understanding the true eternal meaning of the term "success".

The Traveler

[NoxNullaEgetDeumPerfectum]

Sounds like hes saying, if your not reaching the point of perfection in everything that you do, then you will never be perfect or good in anything.

Maybe what he was trying to say is that, if you dont try you wont ever have the chance to succede. The way it is right now, sounds like he wants a super perfect Man or Women. Failing is necessary inroder so that a individual can learn from it. If your not learning from it, then you have truely given up and failing. Point is to pick yourself back up again and to continue onwards.

[Traveler]

Originally Posted by NoxNullaEgetDeumPerfectum

Sounds like hes saying, if your not reaching the point of perfection in everything that you do, then you will never be perfect or good in anything.

Maybe what he was trying to say is that, if you dont try you wont ever have the chance to succede. The way it is right now, sounds like he wants a super perfect Man or Women. Failing is necessary inroder so that a individual can learn from it. If your not learning from it, then you have truely given up and failing. Point is to pick yourself back up again and to continue onwards.

You only have failed when you quit - picking yourself back up or even with the assistance of someone else - is success - not failure.

The Traveler

[anatess]

"If you dont make a success out of everything you do, then you will never make a success out of anything you do"

is not

"If youre not successful at everything you try, your just unsuccessful, period."

Nope.

I use that quote a lot. Learned it from my dad. It goes hand-in-hand with the saying, "When you get lemons make lemonade".

Basically, the idea is that you can always make a success of everything - including failure. If I am unsuccessful at making breakfast without making a mess, it is still a success because I learned how to clean up messes and succeeded at that. Of course, if I just throw my hands up and cry because I made a mess, then yeah, I failed. And if that's my attitude, then I will not be successful in anything - because at the first sign of a snag, I throw my hands up.

This reminds me of my brother. He had a car that was 14 years old. He bought it brand new when his son was 2. My brother has never had a ticket, never had an accident, and is borderline OCD with car maintenance. He loved that car. He gave the car - in pristine condition - to his son when his son turned 16. And a week later, his son totalled it in a car accident. When my brother heard about it, his first reaction was - "Now we know the airbag still works".

[HiJolly]

Originally Posted by Eleven

"If you dont make a success out of everything you do, then you will never make a success out of anything you do"

What i get out of this is "If youre not successful at everything you try, your just unsuccessful, period."

i need commentary. let me know

What you get from it shows that you are one who tends to let the world and/or personal experience defeat you and this mindset does not hold 'hope' and 'faith' as internal values, effectually speaking. Sorry, I can see that's too blunt but I can't think of how else to put it.

For me, it describes the mental 'spin' that there is ALWAYS a pony to be found in that pile of manure, there is always a silver lining in that black cloud, there is always a way to gain value from lived experience, no matter how bad it is.

HiJolly

[Dravin]

As I suspected, it boils down to how people are defining "success" and "what you do". People are parsing things rather finely on both sides, and it seems to stem from exactly what people are infusing the words with. You're getting concepts like ultimate success, or that as long one continues trying to succeed then the "thing you do" isn't over yet and thus can't be declared to not be successful. On the other hand you have the idea that what you do is more quantized, if I burn the omelette I failed at making an omelette, I may have learned from it it but that's a success of the thing I do called learning not the thing I do called making an omelette.

That failures are a necessary part of learning and growing and to not be discouraged and that as long as you keep trying or are learning something you haven't failed are just different sides of the same thin coin. One sees failure as inherently bad so it is defined such that as long as one is progressing it hasn't happened, the other sees it as common preliminary step to finally succeeding.

[Eleven]

Originally Posted by Dravin

As I suspected, it boils down to how people are defining "success" and "what you do". People are parsing things rather finely on both sides, and it seems to stem from exactly what people are infusing the words with. You're getting concepts like ultimate success, or that as long one continues trying to succeed then the "thing you do" isn't over yet and thus can't be declared to not be successful. On the other hand you have the idea that what you do is more episodic, if I burn the omelette I failed at making an omelette, I may have learned from it it but that's a success of the thing I do called learning not the thing I do called making an omelette.

That failures are a necessary part of learning and growing and to not be discouraged and that as long as you keep trying or are learning something you haven't failed are just different sides of the same thin coin. One sees failure as inherently bad so it is defined such that as long as one is progressing it hasn't happened, the other sees it as common preliminary step to finally succeeding.

BTW thanks for all the ideas guys. But Dravin i fully agree, the quotes validity completely relies on the persons definition of what exactly success is. The difficult thing about me and where this quote originated with me is this Presidents view of success was numbers. If you didnt baptize a lot, you were never called into leadership. The zone leaders heavily talked about a "favorite 30" list anytime a lot of zone leaders where going home, meaning some of the other lowly missionaries would have to step it up and become that type of missionary... because of all this, certain areas baptized 70 people, and i SPECIFICALLY remember a missionary coming to me and showing me 70 names of converts, 2 were still active and both had WOW problems...
So for me, My president, knowing what his definition of success was, said this quote and the only thing i could think of was more and more depression among other missionaries. If you didnt baptize as much as everyone else, you werent making a success out of your mission.

Anyways, what i said in this facebook comment was "I think the saying is off but the moral is right. I believe Pres was trying to say "If you dont give 100% in everything that you do, how can you ever hope to be successful in anything you wish to accomplish".

that was my take on it. But in the christian world, saying "If youre not first your last" to me is an oxymoron.