Today is July 15 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you allow the lessons learned to propel you forward?”
American playwright and director Tyler Perry learned that his failures provided him many lessons that he used to move forward. Perry’s childhood in New Orleans was marked by a pattern of abuse by his father, and the bitterness from the broken relationship became a source of unforgiveness as Perry grew older, eventually moving to Atlanta.
It was only after channeling his struggles through writing, that he found a deeper calling.
After praying for God to help him to forgive his father, whom he later reconciled with, Perry turned his turbulent story of forgiveness and redemption into the stage play “I Know I’ve Been Changed.”
From 1992 to 1998, every time he put on the play it flopped and was considered a financial failure until he revamped it and found success taking it on the road from 1998 to 2000.
The playwright made his foray into films transposing many of his straight-to-DVD stage productions into screen gems, dating back to 2001 when he introduced his play “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” to wide audiences via DVDs that were sold on his Web site. It was the $50.7 million box office success of his 2005 debut “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” that landed him a lucrative first-look, multiyear distribution deal with Lionsgate Entertainment. Perry would go on to create 17 films and six television shows.
When reflecting upon his life Perry said “You have to understand that what you may perceive to be a failure may very well be an opportunity to learn, grow, get better, and prepare for the next level. If you find the lessons in what you perceive to be failures, then you won’t ever fail at anything,” said Perry. “Everything I learned during the “learning” years (that’s what I call them now) has helped me in the “harvest” years (that’s what I’m living in now). Don’t be hard on yourself. You haven’t failed. Find the lesson so you can use it when you get to your harvest.”
Perry allowed the lessons learned amidst his failures to propel him forward. Do you?