Today, the title of our sharing is How to Get Out of the Vortex of Failure. When you hear this title, you may be a little unsure of what it means.

Learning How to Get Out of the Vortex of Failure

Let me tell you about the characteristics of this vortex. The characteristic of the vortex is this: when you are initially around the periphery of the vortex, you won't feel that the vortex is very deep. You just see the water flowing. But once you are caught by the vortex, if you don't leave in time, you will sink deeper and deeper.

We pay special attention to the vortex of failure. When you sink to almost the center, you can't escape! When the vortex is in the very center, you are basically powerless. In the process of our ministry, we have also gained a lot of experience. It's like when a person gets cancer, many times it declares that the power of darkness in this family has reached a very, very serious point. This is the vortex.

Making a mistake is not terrible. Making a big mistake is not terrible! What is terrible? What is terrible is that the ensuing rapid vortex-like series of mistakes will lead to disastrous consequences.

Let me give you two examples: The first is about sports. In competitive sports, especially in the process of confrontation between two sides, the most important thing in the battle between two armies is called momentum. Momentum is an entity. For example, there is something that is indescribable, but every person who has studied war or competitive sports knows that this is called momentum. Many times, psychological disadvantage is transformed into failure.

What is a very, very obvious example? Football matches. Consecutive goals are a phenomenon that often occurs in football matches. After one goal goes in, two or three more go in quickly. This phenomenon often occurs in football matches.

I am a football fan! I remember very clearly that I had already become a believer at that time. Barcelona played against Real Madrid. At that time, the strength of both sides was very, very equal, but what was the result? The result was five to zero. Pique holding up his hand, making a five gesture, is one of the most classic photographic works in sports. The strength of the two sides was very even. But why did five goals get poured in? These five goals were in the first half, and they were poured in continuously in a very short period of time.

Uneasy Emotions and Vague Consciousness

The Vortex Effect of Exams

I will tell you a story that I have heard many times, which is also related to the vortex of failure. There is a story circulating in the Jiangsu college entrance examination circle, a story called Ge Jun. Who is Ge Jun? Ge Jun is a professor at Nanjing Normal University, a very famous and powerful mathematics professor.

He set the college entrance examination questions in 2003. At that time, a friend of mine described it to me like this: all the multiple-choice questions were swept through in ten minutes, because the Jiangsu exam papers were different from the national exam papers. The 2003 paper was set by Ge Jun. Generally, people in the advanced class would sweep through all the multiple-choice questions in ten minutes, too lazy to check, because they were sure they were correct.

At that time, my friend spent 5 minutes on the first and second questions, and started to sweat. Not only his palms were sweating, but his head was also sweating. After concentrating on all the multiple-choice questions, there were still three or four questions that he was not sure about, and he felt particularly nervous. Half an hour passed, and all the fill-in-the-blank probabilities were calculated. Fifty minutes had passed, and there were still six big questions left, and his mind was full of sweat. At that time, he had brought a towel, and his head was full of sweat. It was the college entrance examination! This is a matter of a lifetime!

What happened next? The last few questions, what historical geometry? Geographical geometry? There were still three or four big questions that he hadn't finished reading with ten minutes left. In the end, he simply wrote a few sentences of nonsense, hoping to get some passing marks. When my friend walked out of the examination hall, there were already many, many girls outside holding their parents and crying, crying bitterly.

Then, when my friend went home, he walked home like a walking corpse. He said that the bus driver honked the horn in front of him, but he didn't hear it. The 2003 exam questions were leaked, so the backup paper was temporarily replaced. How was the backup paper used? How did it come out? The backup paper was based on the backup paper for the high school mathematics Olympic competition, so it was the backup paper for the mathematics Olympic competition. The average score of the entire Jiangsu session was not a problem, with an average score of 50 out of 150 full marks. Because our school was a national model high school, a very famous school. In the advanced class, less than half of the sixty students passed.

The first few questions were particularly difficult, and everyone panicked, leading to this vortex effect of failure; or rather, what really causes us to have such disastrous consequences is not those small mistakes that we make at the beginning. What is it? It is the uneasy emotions and vague consciousness in your heart after you start making mistakes.

Recovering Calmness and Stability After Making Mistakes

This kind of thing will become a negative cycle. There are positive cycles and negative cycles. What is it? It is that after you make a mistake, you will have uneasy emotions and vague consciousness in your heart; you will make another mistake; after the next mistake is made, the negative emotions of unease in your heart will become stronger; after it becomes stronger, the mistake you make will be even bigger. The whole thing is a feedback mechanism. According to theory, a positive feedback mechanism will increase infinitely; a negative feedback mechanism can increase infinitely.

In fact, it is okay to make small mistakes, but the most feared thing is the uneasy emotions in your heart, the constantly superimposed uneasy emotions, which will make you make disastrous decisions. Many times, uneasy emotions will blur your will. Especially those who usually have good grades or are excellent in their studies are particularly harmed by this thing. And many times it is difficult to recover calmness and stability after you have made a series of mistakes.

Suppose you are interviewing for a sales job, and you are a very outstanding person in sales performance, and you have been doing very, very well in the sales industry. Moreover, in the continuous interview process, you have always had an advantage. The atmosphere at the scene is very, very good, and you will basically be hired. But at this time, you make a mistake that is not very big, not very fatal. Suddenly you feel that the duck in your hand is about to fly away. Suddenly you feel that the atmosphere of being hired is gone. What will you think in your heart?

Generally, people will have a strong sense of unease in their hearts, because they think that what they have gained is about to be lost. People have such uneasy emotions when facing such situations, as well as another kind of angry emotions.

Small Mistakes Lead to Disastrous Consequences

I saw in a book what can be regarded as a news story! This story is described in detail. How a small thing becomes an irreversible disastrous consequence.

This person is an American author, although he is someone who works in Manhattan. He said: I have a habit. Every Wednesday, I go to the public school in the palace on foot. Along the way, I think about problems and admire the scenery along the way. At that time, I was walking east on 33rd Street towards the school.

People who have lived in Manhattan know very well that when crossing the road, you must carefully look at the traffic conditions on both sides. Some people drive cars and run red lights. Most cyclists ride in the opposite direction on one-way streets, and drivers have long been accustomed to avoiding the bustling crowds in the crowded city center. Most New Yorkers have long been accustomed to the harsh sounds of alarms and high-decibel horns, and even taxis that sprint past them at a short distance in front of them are not surprised.

The world is proceeding in a very orderly manner, but there is always something wrong that is about to happen. Saying that I was standing there surrounded by a crowd, waiting for the traffic light, still thinking about some problems. At this time, a beautiful girl, a few steps away from me, was listening to music with headphones on, and her body was constantly swaying with the music. I noticed her because I heard classical music coming from her headphones.

She was wearing a gray skirt and a black sweater, and white sneakers that were typical of office workers. At that time, I remembered this very, very clearly. Why? Because she took a step forward towards the oncoming traffic. I guess she must have been confused by this one-way street. Just as she took the first step, a bicycle fell from the sky and rushed towards her, and the cyclist tried to brake at the last moment. Nevertheless, the bicycle still hit the girl, just lightly hitting the girl. In my memory, time stood still in that second. This was a critical moment in the girl's life.

At that time, if the girl could have retreated to this lane in time, she could have avoided this small accident and been unharmed. But instead, the girl turned around and cursed the cyclist. At that time, a taxi drove quickly from the same intersection and hit her while she was cursing the cyclist who was moving away. The taxi flew her out, flying out like a parabola for nearly ten feet, hitting the energy-saving pillar hard, and lying unconscious in a pool of blood.

What am I telling you? The first mistake this girl made was very simple. She went the wrong way and turned into a one-way street! There were many points of alertness, but she was not alert. But a cyclist slapped her. At this time, the girl really didn't need to be so angry and curse here. While she was cursing, she kept walking forward, and she didn't look at the road at all. At that time, she had lost all her reason, and with a slap, it became a disaster.

I think this author wrote it very interestingly. Imagine in the sea of consciousness, imagine that there are two lines. Flowing in the direction of time, one is the line of time; the other is our thoughts. If at a certain time, our thoughts explode with a slap, the other line of time is still developing forward. We will be in our consciousness because of the inertia caused by the explosion of thoughts, and time is stagnant. Suddenly we wake up, suddenly the girl's consciousness wakes up. The car slammed into her.

What will small mistakes bring? It will bring uneasy consciousness, it will bring fear, indifference, worry, all kinds of negative emotions, and at the most serious time, it will develop into blurred consciousness. Many times some people tell me that their consciousness is blurred in the examination room, and they don't know what they are writing at all. The final result is a mess, completely not their normal level of performance. These uneasy emotions can blur people's consciousness. If your consciousness is blurred, how can you do things?

Be a Confident Person

Confidence Can Push the Hand of God

Disastrous consequences, especially at critical moments, such things are particularly likely to happen. Negative emotions will expand rapidly under pressure. How to solve this problem?

Very simply, three words: have confidence. Having confidence is the answer to all problems. Let me tell you how to promote our confidence in the face of failure at critical moments.

What is momentum? Momentum is actually the state of the war in the spiritual world. We must clearly know the operation of the spiritual world, and the momentum we perceive is half of the victory in the spiritual world. What is momentum? Momentum is morale.

For example, in basketball and football matches between two sides. Usually someone will say: which side's morale has risen, and which side's morale has weakened. Morale, momentum on which side; momentum, on which side. That morale, that atmosphere, that state, is actually the operation of the spiritual world.

When some children are taking exams, some people are working or writing articles, they can write like a god. Why? Because the momentum is on your side. Momentum, because you have momentum! Imagine opening a boat with a rolling torrent, you don't need to use force, and the boat can move forward. That's the feeling. What determines the victory or defeat in the spiritual world is using our faith to push the hand of God.

What is the most important thing to tell you here? The distance between losing and winning is very subtle, and losing and winning often change suddenly. You must go with the flow, but our faith must create this momentum. It is the operation of the spiritual world. Losing and winning actually change suddenly.

There is a book in the 《Bible》 called 《Esther》. The male protagonist in it is Mordecai, and the rebellious figure is Haman. What was the final result? Haman wanted to kill all the Israelites, and he also prepared a pole three meters long to hang up Mordecai. The king had already given the order. That night, Haman caused trouble, a very small trouble. Under the impetus of the momentum, the king's heart suddenly changed, saying: I want to kill this family of Haman, and I want to protect the Israelites. Just this very short change in thought, the entire plot took a 180-degree turn. The pole prepared to hang Mordecai became the pole to hang them. The Israelites instead killed all their enemies.

Everything happened overnight. How long did Haman prepare for this? At least several years or more. Many times the gap between victory and defeat is very large. Suppose our opponents have worked hard for many years, and we still have no progress. At this time, we will feel no confidence. The gap between victory and defeat is very large, and I will feel that the devil is powerful and invincible. It's not. The gap between victory and defeat is just a moment, a sudden change.

Stories in the 《Bible》 often develop like this. What? The situation continues to deteriorate, and at a certain point, it suddenly becomes all good. Many stories in the 《Bible》 are like this. The most typical is the story of 《Esther》 just now. 《Esther》 and 《Nehemiah》 are both stories of this kind. This is a way God works. This world continues to deteriorate, and a spiritual world slap is destroyed.

God creates a new one. This is God's way of saving people. The gap between losing and winning is extremely small. Through our faith, we can turn it around, and turn around quickly. Create that momentum through faith. Don't lose your mind after one failure or several failures. You will feel that you are getting farther and farther away from success. It's not. Although you fail for a period of time; although you waste some time, so what? Our God is an almighty God.

The things that the entire spiritual world can do are unimaginable. The changes caused by the entire spiritual world can be holy changes. You can completely increase your faith greatly. Because your faith can instantly make up for your disadvantages. It is your business, and what God will do is also your business. This is the first point of having faith. The gap between winning and losing is extremely small. We must use faith to push the hand of God.

Stable Faith Brings Out Impromptu Performance

We can create more beauty through unstable environments.

To give the most difficult example, actors who perform stage plays often forget their lines, right? But first-class actors will gloss over the mistake, and the audience will not notice it at all. What is even more amazing is that first-class actors can stabilize their confidence, continue performing, and give some impromptu performances. Why is there creativity? Because people will leave their comfort zone in an unknown environment.

Suddenly a mistake is made. Originally, this mistake should not have been made, and it was made in public. At that time, people will leave their original comfort zone. If this person is a person of faith, he will generate courage because of this unknown, and he will explode his faith, compress it very critically and powerfully, and he will be able to bring out courage, and bring out a very critical faith. And such faith will bear some very gorgeous fruit.

There is such a passage in Guo Degang's crosstalk. At that time, he sang a Hebei opera, singing about Zhao Gongming and Randeng Daoist meeting in The Investiture of the Gods. That Randeng Daoist persuaded Zhao Gongming not to fight, but Zhao Gongming wanted to fight, and they broke up unhappily anyway. There is a line in this passage. The actor who played Zhao Gongming sang: Zhao Gongming, I ride a white tiger. The actor who played Randeng Daoist sang: Randeng Daoist, I ride a plum blossom. Then, when singing, he sang it wrong. The actor who played Zhao Gongming sang: Zhao Gongming, I ride a plum blossom. The actor who played Randeng Daoist was dumbfounded. He will continue to sing it wrong: If you ride a plum blossom, what will I ride? The story after that is very funny. They were able to bring this story down very depressingly.

In short, in such an unknown field, in an unknown environment, it seems that a small mistake and a careless mistake can become your wealth. If you have faith, this is another level of faith. Having faith is a panacea. It sounds a bit clichéd, but it really is a panacea.

Everyone must know the effect of the vortex of failure. It is not terrible to make the first mistake. What is terrible? What is terrible is that after making the first mistake! Then you make the second mistake, the third mistake, and the fourth mistake. Repeatedly causing disastrous consequences is the most terrible thing.

Why do people make these mistakes? And make these mistakes continuously? Because mistakes will bring people uneasy emotions, fear, and even a degree of blurred will, making people completely lose control of their own consciousness. They are controlled by demons. The key to solving the problem is three words: have confidence.

On which level is there confidence?

First, you must believe that the change between losing and winning is very small and can change suddenly. Because the victory or defeat in the spiritual world determines our victory or defeat in reality, because your faith can push the hand of God.

Second, some small mistakes can even become our assets. When we push with our faith and our courage, we will even bring out impromptu performances, some creative performances. Make your results become unrepeatable, very gorgeous, very expressive, and bear a very, very good fruit, a unique fruit.