Worst case scenario thinking is healthy, worst case scenario believing is not. And there's an important difference. Prudence in life requires that we understand the ways in which things could go wrong, and have some idea as to what we would do if they did. That's worst case scenario thinking. We imagine various negative scenarios enough to prepare for them, but no more than that. Too much imagination can actually become anticipation, and that easily can turn into belief.

When I was a teenager, my father used to tell me stories about effective worst case scenario thinking. A dump truck driver had imagined what would happen if the bed of the truck was in the up position and there was a catastrophic failure causing it to fall onto the cab. He had visualized jumping into the floorboard to keep from being crushed. And then one day it happened. And he was unhurt, because he instantly had done exactly what he had imagined.

At its best, worst case scenario thinking is a form of "what if" planning. It prepares us for remote possibilities, and thereby helps us to avoid the most damaging consequences that could otherwise ensue. As such, it's actually a way of building confidence and assurance, rather than anxiety. But at its worst, the same sort of thinking can become both believing and fearing. Out of control, it unhinges us and impedes our performance. It's up to use to use it in the best way, and avoid the worst case scenario with it.

We benefit from people sharing their success stories with us. We want to know: How did it happen? What did they do? Could they predict the process in advance, or were there surprises?

We benefit from people sharing their failure stories with us. We want to know: How did it happen? What did they do? Could they predict the process in advance, or were there surprises?

I've been a student of success for a very long time. And along the way, I've come to grasp the vital importance of understanding failure as a crucial part of any worthwhile adventure. In this world, success is often hard to attain, and failure's easy to stumble into. But what's easy can teach us about what's hard. Rather than being embarrassed about failure, we need to acknowledge it, embrace it, and learn from it. It's the world's most common course for the growth and excellence we all aspire to achieve.

Christmas is, in principle, a holiday in which we Christians celebrate a great experiment, an adventure, really, that seemed to end, thirty-some years after the original Christmas day, in tragic failure. But in that apparent failure, were the seeds of ultimate success. We're told that God, the Source of All, transformed the terrible into the wonderful. And that's how it can go for us, as well.

Wise people have given us some advice about this. They've said: Fail often, fail well, fail forward. Avoid only those failures that would take you out of the game altogether. And, while this, in principle, is great advice, we often overestimate the damage that a certain failure would create, and we shy away from trying. We forget our inner resilience that sometimes only failure reveals.

So, today's advice is simple. Be the little ball that bounces high whenever it hits bottom hard.

Don't fear failure. Fear only a refusal to learn from it and transform it to the success whose seeds it contains.

Merry Christmas.