Failure and The Way To Success

03/05/21 • 21 min

Last week I spoke about the Art of Repurposing and a new perspective from the Icarus Myth I learned from one of my favorite authors: Seth Godin.

During that episode I said:

If we want to succeed, we may fail many times.

Now, I want to correct myself:

If we want to succeed, we must fail many times.

We must build a strong failure resilience if we want success.

It took me a long time to internalize this maximum, and I have to admit it’s not always comfortable to follow.

Two resources that help me build my failure resilience are:

ONE-

An interview with Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx and self-made billionaire, where she tells how her father used to ask every night at the dinning room table:
“Okay kids, what did you fail at today?”

This is a 3-minute video that is really worth your time.
Blakely's story is an amazing example of how to reframe failure.

See the video below and ask yourself:

– “What did I fail at today?”

TWO-

The other resources is a book titled:
Go for No! Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There

The author Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz create a compelling story to show us how our image of a fork in the road where one option is failure and the other option is success, is a misleading one. A better and more realistic visualization is to see failures are the stepping stones to success.

What are you waiting for:

Just take the risk, do it, fail, learn and try again.

Repeat this, as many time as you need, to succeed.

Last week I spoke about the Art of Repurposing and a new perspective from the Icarus Myth I learned from one of my favorite authors: Seth Godin.

During that episode I said:

If we want to succeed, we may fail many times.

Now, I want to correct myself:

If we want to succeed, we must fail many times.

We must build a strong failure resilience if we want success.

It took me a long time to internalize this maximum, and I have to admit it’s not always comfortable to follow.

Two resources that help me build my failure resilience are:

ONE-

This is a 3-minute video that is really worth your time.
Blakely's story is an amazing example of how to reframe failure.

See the video below and ask yourself:

– “What did I fail at today?”

TWO-

The other resources is a book titled:
Go for No! Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There

What are you waiting for:

Just take the risk, do it, fail, learn and try again.

Repeat this, as many time as you need, to succeed.

Previous Episode

Blind Spots – We All Have Them

I received touching comments from Episode 4 where I focused on Carol Dweck's book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.”

Here are a few:

“If you ever wanted to make a difference in the world, you certainly did change my world with this podcast.”

“What a great topic, Ana. I've read Dr. Dweck's book and it really had a positive impact in my life.”

“I started believing something very different, that this is a skill set that I can build with practice and intention.”

Learning about Growth and Fixed Mindset makes a difference, mainly when we realize that we have a growth mindset overall, yet a fixed mindset in certain critical areas. These fixed mindsets, of which we are usually unaware, stop us from being “So Good They Can't Ignore You” (could not resist the plug to Episode 5 about this other wonderful book ;).

All of us have these blind spots. That’s normal.

We are not aware of them until someone, or something forces us to see what we don’t see them.

Did you know that you have a visual blind spot in your eye?

To experience this is powerful.

Look at the image below (on the screen or print it out).

You can also draw it on a piece of paper: a small dot on the left side separated by about 6-8 inches from a small + on the right side.

Then:

1. Close your right eye (you can cover it with your hand.)

2. Look at the small dot and small + (about 20 inches away from the image.)

3. Without moving your head, look at the + with your left eye.

4. Slowly move your head closer while looking at the +. At a certain point, the dot will disappear from your eyesight.

Amazing! This is where you blind spot is.

You can reverse the process. Close your left eye and look at the dot with your right eye. Adjust your distance until the + disappears.

You can find different variations of this experiment at https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/chvision.html

The blind spot is the area on the retina without receptors. Therefore, we can not see any images that fall on that spot.

We are not aware of this phenomenon because:

1- We usually view with both eyes (so one eye sees the information that falls into to the other eye's blind spot)

2- Even when we look at something only with one eye, our brain fills in the missing information – our brain tricks us to see what is supposed to be there.

In other words, we are able to see things that are not really there.

[Tweet “We are able to see things that are not really there.”]

Think of the implications of this for our fixed mindset blind spots.

A fixed mindset is the belief that certain talents or skills are set, and cannot be changed.

Holding this fixed mindset leads our brain to interpret certain experiences to support that belief – therefore, we are not aware of that blind spot.

So, what does this imply for a Self-Employed Professional?

Most Self-Employed work alone, at least most of the time, so they cannot rely on the other eye – another person – to see what falls within their blind spots. So it becomes, even more essential to become ware of our blind spots and understand how we fill the missing information in with our own beliefs.

Probably you never thought about this before. I hope that you start to look for situations that challenge you, to become aware of your own bias.

This is the first step in the process to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

Next Episode

React or Create – Your Choice

Think about a time when you lost your car keys, and you are already running late.

You know that they have to be somewhere in your house, and you almost sure that you left them in the kitchen, but you can't see them anywhere.

You feel the stress build and know that doesn’t help, but it’s seems impossible to stop all your negative thoughts and emotions.

Negative emotions are very strong and our body is wired for a quick response to negativity.

This happens because negative emotions have a survival value.

Think about our ancestors, tens of thousands years ago somewhere in the African continent. If they saw a lion they had to react fast. This response saved their lives.

Nowadays, we don’t have to run away from lions. However, if we cross the road, and see a car coming fast, we are thankful that we are wired to react and move away just in time to not be hurt.

Negative emotions can be good. They can save our lives. They can signal danger.

The problem is not negative emotions–the problem is that we stay stuck on them.

Think about driving a car. When we touch the accelerator we want to feel something happen. Our nervous system is wired to quickly activate us for a fight or flight response. It’s as if we have a sports car accelerator within us. Small touch–big reaction.

Thankfully, we also have a brake system. We are also wired to relax. This system slows us down like the brakes of an old car– it takes time.

The challenge that many of us face is that we stay stuck with our feet on the accelerator – even after the danger is over.

It’s difficult to release the accelerator and start to activate the brakes.

In other words, we cannot avoid negative emotions and sometimes they be life savers.
The problem is staying stuck in the negativity.

[Tweet “The problem is staying stuck in the negativity”]

It’s also true, that some people tend to stay stuck more than others.

For some people it’s easy to become like a mouse on the treadmill–running, and running, and not going anywhere.

Putting fires out all day long. Feeling stress and anxiety.

This is a reactive mode, and it’s so easy to stay stuck there.

Other people are more like cats. They can relax easily after running very fast.

They enjoy the adrenaline and they know how to enjoy the rest time too.

The tendency to be more like a mouse or a cat, has a lot to do with our genes.

Positive Psychology research shows that our general well being is determined:

50% by a genetic set point
10% by life circumstances
40% by intentional activity, what we do and what we think

This 40% is the silver lining.

We can learn to become more like cats.

Think about this quote that Stephen Covey attributes to Viktor Frankl:

“Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

I love this quote because, we usually see a stimulus as something that activates a response almost automatically.

There Frankl sees a space.

A brief space where we have the power to choose our response.

A brief space where we can learn to be creators of our lives and not just be reactors.

Try this:

Write the word “reactivity.”

Move that “c” to the beginning of the word.

What word do you read now?

Quite amazing!

Small changes can produce big changes.

Some of us have to work harder than others to slow down and to stop reactivity cycle. Yet, we can learn to relax and create a more intentional outcome.

If you fell like the mouse on the wheel, it's wonderful to realize that you can learn to be more like a cat.

[Tweet “We can learn to become more like cats”]

Think about the possibilities, and how this helps you to make a bigger difference as a self-employed professional.