The F Word
Failure is one of the most underestimated powers in our world. This power consumes every single human on the planet, all day long, every day of our lives. Each cell in our body works together nonstop in incredibly complex ways to not fail us (the whole homeostasis thing). Our mind also works without rest to avoid countless failures and keep us and those around us safe.
In spite of this dominant and all-consuming power in our lives, many people don’t like to think about or talk about failure. Smarter people than I can better explain the scientifically backed reasons for this topic avoidance, but basically, it’s scary AF. It can be unpleasant, discouraging, embarrassing, paralyzing, distracting, depressing, and (READER insert their own negative words here). This is not good. Ignoring such a significant power is not the right approach to harnessing it and maximizing its benefits, but instead it lets the negativity side of the power have free reign within our lives.
We need to think and talk about failure every day, because it's going to be there in a significant way whether we talk about it or not. We must somehow figure out a way to build a productive relationship with failure, getting to know it like it’s the roommate we will live with until our last breath (because it is just that). Ignoring failure doesn't work, as it just becomes the elephant in the room that creates a constant negative distraction for us.
DO NOT WORRY. There is really great news about the power of failure. Failure is for our benefit. Failure makes us better. Failure is essential in our growth and is the key ingredient to success. Strange, isn't it? If the key ingredient for chocolate chip cookies is chocolate chips, we wouldn't try to make chocolate chip cookies by intentionally avoiding and using this ingredient. But most of us try to achieve success in our lives without understanding and including this key ingredient of failure.
We have a big goal for this community: to tear down the stigma around failure. The best way to start is by calling attention to the biggest elephant in corner of our lives so that the distraction and negative power it has over us will start to diminish. We know this first step isn't easy, and we’re here to help do it together. Are you ready?
What does Fail Fast mean?
Isn’t it better to not fail fast, but rather avoid failure altogether?
That's of course what we strive for when we set out to tackle a day. However, no matter how lofty our aspirations or talent, we are going to fail.
- The best athletes in the world lose.
- The smartest business minds make bad decisions.
- The brightest scientists and doctors get it wrong.
- The best parents act like bad parents at times.
- The nicest people can be assholes on occasion.
Failing fast is a business concept that stems from a project management methodology called Agile. You can find additional info about failing fast and Agile project management online or with the help of your favorite AI companion. For introductory purposes, let's think about failing fast in terms of the above statement “no matter how lofty our aspirations or talent, we are going to fail.” Even though we know failure will come, we don’t always recognize when it’s happening. Sometimes it's obvious like when we trip/slip and physically hit the ground. However, much of the time the act of failing is much less obvious to us. So here's a question for you. If you know 100% you will fail constantly as a human, would you rather know quickly that you're in the act of failing or keep plugging away for an unknown period of time?
Failing fast successfully requires a mentality that supports ACCEPTANCE AND EXPECTANCE of failure as a part of a success journey. The goal is to remain open-minded and objective when looking for and evaluating failure, and treat the learnings as a very valuable data source we will use to succeed or fail less in the future. This community is here to help those who might be afraid of failure, deny when it happens, not see it when it happens, get discouraged when it happens, or even quit and run away prematurely before it happens.
This next sentence is the most important concept, and is the foundation on which all our learning here together will take place. You cannot avoid failure in this life no matter what you do. If you live a life trying to avoid failure, you will have 100% failed in not pursuing your potential. It's your choice on which failure you will choose: the failure experienced by trying, or the failure experienced by not trying.
Rising Vast to our potential
Rising Vast is our goal for each and every listener in this community. When failure and the challenges of this difficult life knock us to the ground, what do we do? Do we stay there? Do we crawl away? Do we stand up slowly and cautiously, scared of future adversity? Or do we rise up, greater and stronger than before, and attack our potential equipped with the armor and strategy supplied to us by our previous failures?
Potential is completely unique to each human, like our fingerprints. But unlike fingerprints that don’t change, our potential changes constantly based on all the factors of our current reality. Contributing factors that make up our true potential include physical capabilities and limitations, environmental and geographical situations, dependency relationships, demographics, knowledge, age, and so on. Let’s call our realistic potential based on all the contributing factors our potential “range”.
Reaching our potential requires the combination of two things:
1. Our best and honest assessment of our potential range
2. Incorporating action based on lessons learned from previous failures
Number one represents a current snapshot in time, and it constantly changes. Number two also changes, but the way it changes and how much it changes relies heavily on one’s relationship with failure. The better the relationship with failure, the greater the amount of action and quality of the action. The worse the relationship with failure, the lower the quality and the quantity of action.
The results in our life are simply the combination of one and two. Since one and two are unique to every human on earth, the results are also unique to us…right? But two of our favorite activities as humans is to compare our snapshot of today’s results with others in the world and to see our shortcomings. If this is done in a healthy way, it can result in valuable knowledge and lessons learned to help us tomorrow. Unfortunately, many of us don’t compare to others in a healthy way or constructively evaluate our shortcomings, thus further disrupting our relationship with failure and negatively impacting our ability to achieve our potential.
Rising Vast after failure to reach potential levels is not easy. It takes constant learning, outside support, tenacity, perseverance, optimism, forgiveness, humbleness, willingness, and many more "ness" words. Even though it can sometimes feel lonely during this journey, we are not alone. The world is full of people who have been through similar difficult situations to what we are in currently, and who are willing to help us rise vast after failing. Let's find them together and see what they can share with us.