Failure can knock the confidence and enthusiasm out of people as quickly and as easily as a punch on the nose can make your eyes water. How can we recover and maintain the enthusiasm we have lost? How can we learn to see clearly once more?

Only a few years ago, I attended a seminar organized by the Anthony Robbins group on making money through investing in shares amongst other things.

As I walked out of the doors full of enthusiasm and excitement ready to make the most of my new found confidence and knowledge, I was met by men in straw hats who were advertising a course on making money through investing in shares.

I attended the weekend course and my enthusiasm and confidence increased.

A year or so later I had managed to lose 27,000 pounds after being conned by some share brokers who turned out to be criminal fraudsters. They were 'selling' shares they did not own.

My lazy failure to check them out was more to blame than the seminar and course but my enthusiasm and excitement vanished like snow in the morning sun.

I have been on an investment course since but my enthusiasm is still gone. By losing enthusiasm, I have added one failure to another and have not followed the great advice of Winston Churchill:

"Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm."

After losing money, I should have 'climbed back on the horse' as it were and invested what little I had left. Maybe I will one day. In the mean time I have focused on internet marketing instead and am gradually making progress in that field and despite some setbacks have maintained my enthusiasm.

I was impressed, yesterday, by reading Jason Cox's blog. Jason is a very successful and very young internet entrepreneur. He described a list of projects he had undertaken in 2005.

Some of them - the ones he had created himself - were complete flops but the copycat projects were a huge success. He had maintained his enthusiasm throughout. He did not allow the flops to stop his momentum or quench his enthusiasm. Success follows that kind of attitude like rivers follow rain.

Another great quote by Paul J Meyer sums up his attitude:

"Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass!"

This quote hints at the secrets of maintaining our enthusiasm. We need to vividly imagine our eventual success as if it was already ours. We need to fan our desire by thinking about why we are following this particular dream. We need to believe that we have the ability to achieve our goals and we need to act with enthusiasm.

If we don't feel enthusiastic, we need to act as if we do and the feeling will often follow on. We need to climb back on the horse if we fall off and not lie complaining on the grass.

The original meaning of enthusiasm means 'God in you'. With God in us, we should be capable of performing miracles or, at least, extraordinary deeds.

If we can maintain our enthusiasm instead of losing it when we fail, we should end up in the land of miracles and the land of the extraordinary.

John Watson

John Watson was born in Shanghai at the start of World War II on Dec 31st 1939

His father, a British civil engineer, was given the choice of working in the mines of Northern China for the occupying forces or going to a concentration camp. He refused to work for the invading forces.

As a result the whole family were imprisoned in a concentration camp in the middle of China in 1942. Eric Liddell (featured in the Chariots of Fire) the Scottish runner and missionary was imprisoned in the same camp.

In 1945 the family was rescued by American troops who were parachuted in. John's most treasured possession from this time is a plane made of bullets given him by one of the US soldiers. The tail parts have been lost but most of it remains. He also remembers being given a bottle of coca cola by one of the US troops and has been an addict ever since!

They moved to England and then, when John's father died, to the Isle of Man.

John went to school in the Isle of Man and then taught Physical Education at a prep school in Hertfordshire. Around this time he had three mystical experiences of contact with God.

He then studied English Literature at Cambridge University and later became an English teacher in South East London but, after 5 years, he did a diploma in Religious Studies and began teaching about religion full time.

After 33 years teaching in three London Comprehensive schools, John retired from teaching. He received several awards and commendations for teaching both religious studies and the martial arts. He still teaches martial arts after beginning training in karate at the age of 37. The style he now teaches is Choikwangdo, a brilliant self-defence and health oriented style founded by Grandmaster Kwang Jo Choi in 1987.

In his retirement he began studying internet marketing and continued his study of the psychology of achievement and self development. This has always been a key interest.

John plans on writing reports and books on both teaching and on achievement in general. He feels that many schools let their students down by not teaching enough about how to study (by using mind maps for example) and about how to set goals and how to start saving money for their early retirement!

John's main aim is to make the most of his own potential and to help others make the most of their's. He also wishes to pass on whatever he knows of the meaning of life and to discover more and share more about the truths behind the universe.