The Leadership Diaries: Embracing Failure

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is a delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end". 

~ Denis Waitley

As a leader, the one thing I have embraced is failing.

Failure is our teacher, and it leads to new horizons.

I have failed many times in my life as I try to change my habits to improve myself.

One of my core memories of failing was when I received an F midway through my Advanced Placement psychology class.

I was invested in the class, and I wanted to succeed, and it was very difficult.

I wrote on the wall of my room that F stands for failure, and I’m not a failure.

Was I hard on myself? Yes.

And, as I learned, F fueled me to succeed.

I have dyslexia, which makes it difficult to read and process information.

I earned a C in the class and was proud of my accomplishment.

I failed in college because of my chronic condition.

I was kicked out and banned from my private University.

I ended up in the mental hospital 18 times after saying to myself I wouldn’t go back.

I overcame my dyslexia by reading a lot of books.

I became a powerhouse at a start-up company where I worked in 2015.

I created and managed their outbound process and pipeline.

No one knew I had a mental condition.

When it came to my personal life, I overcame porn and finally broke the addiction.

Did I have days where I failed?

Absolutely.

Despite that, I had the pursuit of a bigger picture, and it fueled me to persevere.

When I worked as a Bible salesman in Tennessee, I constantly failed.

I didn’t get the script right, was awkward knocking on doors, and ultimately gave up on my early sales career.

Although I failed to do door-to-door work, I succeeded in my cold-calling career.

Failure paved the way to success.

My mentor in high school told me you never fail because you always succeed in failing.

According to Google, this statement means that even when you experience what might seem like a "failure," you can still consider it a success because it provides an opportunity to learn, grow, and improve from your mistakes, ultimately moving you closer to achieving your goal. 

Key points about this idea:

• Learning from mistakes: Failure allows you to identify areas for improvement and develop new strategies. 

• Resilience building: Overcoming setbacks and bouncing back from failures strengthens your determination and perseverance. 

• Growth mindset: Viewing "failure" as a learning experience encourages a positive attitude towards challenges and setbacks.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck was a book that helped me a lot during my cold-calling career.

There are two schools of thought you could end up in.

There is a Growth Mindset, which means you are attempting to complete a goal, and as you make mistakes and have setbacks, you tell yourself you are not there yet.

Here are some ways to develop a growth mindset:

• Identify areas where you have a fixed mindset

• Seek feedback

• Embrace failure

• Pursue challenges

• Ask questions

• Take pride in the journey

• Praise effort, not abilities

The key word is Yet which is a powerful word to tell yourself when completing a goal.

Then there’s a Fixed Mindset, a belief that one's abilities are innate and unchangeable.

People with a fixed mindset may: 

• Fear change 

• Focus on being perfect 

• Believe that talent is enough to succeed 

• Avoid challenges to avoid failure 

• Feel threatened by others' success 

• Want to prove their intelligence instead of improving their knowledge 

• View success or failure as a reflection of inherent proficiency 

• Feel that hard work is "all for nothing" when it doesn't yield a direct result 

• Define themselves by their successes and failures 

• Avoid taking risks to avoid looking bad if they fail 

These concepts framed a mentality to succeed despite my failure.

Then there’s another book by Maxwell Maltz called PsychoCybernetics.

I love this book, and there’s so much I can apply from it.

One concept that stuck was that, as human beings, we are goal-oriented mechanisms.

As we set goals, our internal mechanism does whatever is necessary to achieve them.

Picture this: we are like torpedoes.

We have a target to hit, which is our goal.

As we work towards that target, we may overcompensate or lose course for a moment, but we are always focused on hitting the target.

I love reading and learning, which every leader should aspire to achieve.

These two books have given me a new perspective and are portals to new ideas.

As I reflect, I have failed in relationships.

I have had a couple of good friends who have lost touch with me over the years.

I take responsibility for that, making me reflect on how I contribute to the friendship.

We should always be learning and improving ourselves; there’s no excuse.

I have a chronic illness, and I have embedded in myself that it doesn’t define me.

Embrace the failures I believe in you!