After listening to the infamous or famous Monica Lewinsky giving a powerful talk about “the price of shame,” I had to share my thoughts.

- We all have fucked up; we all have woken up in the morning hoping that we could stay in bed all day. Sometimes shame is so unbearable, to the point that it cripples us and we don’t know how to deal with it.

So, to learn to deal with shame, first we need understand the meaning: Shame is a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. It is the embarrassment of character. It is a heavy weight on your soul.

Now, how can we deal with this burden?
First, we need to accept that we messed up. We were wrong or stupid.
Then, we must love ourselves enough to know how to forgive ourselves. To forgive yourself is to set free your soul and mind.
Third and most important, how people view us does not define who we are; their idea is not our reality.

Keep in mind: The majority sees your failures as their success because they have no true success to measure by. Your jury has messed up as much as you or worst; they are judging you because you are the excuse to make them feel better.

It took Monica Lewinsky over 10 years to understand that her “sin” was as a big of a deal than anyone else. She was in love, made a mistake and that was it!

"It is not your mistakes that define you; it is the process of understanding, accepting, learning and making it better to end up worthy!" - Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld

When you find yourself against the wall, or feel like you have a knife against your throat, you have two choices: either surrender and get killed or break away.  Since dying is not an option, you must break away and force yourself forward.

Whenever you are faced with uncertainty, first, you must have a true intention to overcome it. Then, identify the problem so you can find a solution.

Identifying the problem and understanding it’s circumstances helps to take away the fear of the unknown. Without the fear, you can focus on solving it.

Remember: Having an attitude that will defeat and not to be defeated, will change a person's outlook from a victim to a victor.

This morning I had a meeting with an old friend, a lady that is a skillful writer.

As soon as we saw each other she said: 

“Mauricio, I am one of your followers and really enjoy your writings; you are a great writer!”

“Not really, I write like a 5 year old but I do enjoy what I do,” I replied.

Before I even finished the sentence she said “You are right… but you have great ideas.” 

“You are right” she said, she didn’t even try to sugar coat it like: “you are not that bad, for a non-native English speaker, you are doing a great job;” she spoke the truth. She knows that my writing skills are not the best, Ha ha.

Here are my thoughts:

If we wait until we are “ready” to begin building our dreams, our future, we will be waiting forever. There will always be a reason, an excuse not to do it.

I do not have the money, I do not have the time, I am too young or too old, I do not know how to write, people will not be able to understand me and so on.

To motivate people is my passion; I Love Failure is my tool. Yes, my writing skills are poor but my thoughts and concepts are powerful. People can relate to them and I do believe that I am making an impact.

You tell me: Should I have waited to promote my ideas until I learned how to write?

I am writing about this to encourage you to break the fear of just doing!  I am a Latino, with a very heavy accent, dyslexic, and with speech issues who decided to become a writer. Once I realized that I do not need to have the perfect English or the perfect writing skills, I felt empowered to start.

I am no longer waiting for a solution for my problems, because they will never go away; I will find a way to work around them!

To master a discipline or to become skilled on a craft takes continuous learning, endless hours of practice, patience and passion. It takes a substantial amount of work.

After becoming proficient in a skill we have the sense of accomplishment; we are excited and feel great. We know that we have become an authority in our field and that we deserve the fruits of our labor.

Now, here is the tricky situation that the majority of us suffer from after becoming an “expert:”

It is right to trust our abilities and be self-confident, yet we have to become careful not to be overconfident.

Self-confidence means to trust in one's abilities, qualities, and judgment. It is the ability to envision optimism and success when others only see failure. It helps to get over the fears and being able to achieve. Self-Confidence means to be happy about ones abilities and to be self-assured.

Over-confident is to be excessively or unreasonably confident. When we become over-confident is when we allow our ego to take over and we lose perspective of reality; it is when mistakes are made. 

So: What does it means “to allow our ego to take over?”

It means to think too highly about ourselves; to truly believe that we are always right and that everything should go our way.

It means to stop listening to other people’s opinion and to disregard the feelings or desires of others.

It means to constantly seek acceptance to justify our needs; to crave respect and recognition from others.

It means to be self-centered!

Here is a lesson for all of us:

To have an ego is good, but it has to balanced like the water in a bath. The water can’t be too hot or too cold, it has to be always ajusted right; if not, we could get burned or turn blue with cold.

When our ego becomes too big, we become blind; we don’t see ourselves engaging in such behaviors but everyone else does. Yet, if we open our minds and honestly see ourselves we will recognize the problem, and then we can slow down and self-correct it.

A true master, a true leader, a true friend, a true teacher… feels good about himself knowing to put his ego to the side understanding that he has a talent but is not unique. He puts himself out in front and accepts complete responsibility when things go wrong and gives credit when things go right.  A true master never stops learning, progressing and is grateful to be able to lead!

At the end, it takes an upstanding person to admit that he/she is absorbed in such an egocentric conduct and is willing to react and change.

Peace out!

In 2012 I began working on my blog: I Love Failure, a blog created to motivate people to follow their dreams, raise their standards, succeed and to understand that failure is just a lesson in life that comes before success.
It has been a fun project, where I have been constantly learning and improving. Posting a thought everyday, writing a blog every 5 to 7 days and giving talks to motivate and excite people to work hard for their aspirations.
The first blog, “Procrastination” was posted on September of 2012. Why procrastination?  It was the time that it took me to finally write the first post. Today, after 2 1/2 years, I have written over 132 blogs, posted over 700 quotes and gave a substantial amount of presentations. I proved my credibility, momentum and most importantly motivated  my audience to try, to risk and follow their passion
Tonight I am about to reach the 500,000 mark.  Having 500,000 followers on Facebook, for me, is a big and significant  number. The fact that I have 500,000 followers provides me with the best reward, that people trust, relate and understand my writings and concepts.  Finally I managed to find the way to connect to my readers and get them excited about life.
I am grateful for the life challenges that have provided me with the wisdom that I am able to share with my readers and mostly, grateful to my audience. Realizing that without perseverance and determination I would not be able to accomplish anything.
Thank you, thank you to everyone and please understand that failures are the speed bumps in life that matter.  They are not regrets but small disappointments that wake up the strength within us! Failures are the process of learning and improving.

“Without failures we simply are at a status quo!” – Mauricio Fraga-Rosenfeld 

Lately, I have been a little lost,so I decided to look for guidance.
This past weekend I signed up for a 50-hour seminar; “Unleash The Power Within,” by Tony Robbins a life-coach. 


Tony Robbins is not a motivational speaker but a learn-to-live-coach, he teaches this concept in order to change our circumstances, first we need to understand what is influencing and driving us, what are our beliefs and habits.  At the end, all these invisible forces that are controlling our lives can be changed.

It was a weekend filled with a high level of energy that created a beautiful and almost spiritual state.

- So, I would like to share this experience and one of the lessons with all you:

Where you are in life today, depends 100% on one word, only one word: standards, your standards!

What is the meaning of standards? It is a behavior that is expected; it is the norm, our expected norm.

There are different levels of standards:

• Low Standards: If poor standards are the norm, everything you do in life, will have poor results. If you do a poor job at work, you will be fired. If you have poor eating habits, you will become fat and unhealthy. If you do a poor job as parent, your children might end up in jail. If you do a poor job in your relationship, your spouse might leave you.
  

• Good Standards: That is what most people in our country have. We do a good job, we are good parents, and we get good grades. Decades ago doing a good job would mean you have a secure job and get rewarded. Today if you are good, you will be fired because good is poor in todays standards. If you’re doing a good job at school, you will not get into the best universities. If you are doing a good job at home for sure your kids are smoking marijuana. 
  

• Excellent Standards: Before, excellent was the top, the best. However, today excellent is just truly-good, and is something that high achievers won’t accept. In this competitive world, truly-good is the norm for everyone.
  

• To really succeed you need to do an outstanding job; you need to have outstanding standards. We live in times where if we want to be exceptional, we need persistently to be adding value by constantly raising our standards.
  

“Your life should not be fucking good, it should be fucking outstanding.” - Tony Robbins

Opportunities won’t stand in front of you with a big smile saying, “look at me…”
You have to search for them, to pursue them.  They are always hiding but waiting for someone to discover them!

When you make a mistake…
First, understand what you did wrong and accept it.
Then, truly do your best to improve the situation, to repair your error.
Finally, modify your behavior, so it won’t happen again.
After all, move on!