Booyah
On Friday I published a pretty personal post about my biggest failures in life. It was a response to Emilie Wapnick’s Failure Celebration Week initiative.
The idea is to celebrate failure rather than shaming it, or simply reframing it as ‘feedback’, which too often feels like a halfhearted attempt at consolation. It may help to ease the disappointment but doesn’t necessarily encourage us to get back on the horse and eagerly go charging at the next impossible challenge.
I didn’t realise until later that I really glossed over that point in the original post; and, judging by the responses—this came over as a bit of a sob story. Not sure if it inspired courage so much as condolences. Not what I intended at all.
The point—the one I didn’t make the first time—is that failure (or anything else really) is a function of your focus on life. When you cherry pick the worst possible aspect of everything, pile it all together, highlight the low points, and put it under a microscope it comes off seeming like a pretty dismal situation. And no wonder.
Yet don’t we all do that to ourselves sometimes? When you’re stuck in depressing thoughts it’s difficult to see anything but. When you label yourself as a failure—you feel like one. It doesn’t matter what successes you’ve had or how much you’ve grown. You’re not acknowledging those things. You’re just looking at the low points. And that’s a distorted view of reality.
For every valley, there’s a peak.
Allow me to demonstrate…
| It Sucks When… | But Then Again… |
|---|---|
| Three weeks late being born (already behind schedule). | Hey, where’s the fire? May as well take advantage of a good thing while it lasts. |
| Struggle with social phobias throughout formative years. | Yeah, I was a shy kid; but despite that I still managed to get up in front of audiences and perform year after year. Courage win. |
| Develop a crush on a girl in my 6th grade class and change my choice of high-school just so I can to see her again. Then never approach or speak to her about it. | What can I say? I was 12. |
| Mortified during a piano Eisteddford when minutes before competing, realize the fly on my pants is broken causing them to perpetually fall down when I walk. Too embarrassed to even mention this to anyone, I do my best to look natural while hobbling on stage without bending my knees, perform in a cold sweat and disappear as quickly as possible. | In retrospect, this is frickin hilarious. |
| High School concert goes awry with singers straining their voices and giving me desperate looks half way between “help me” and “what the fuck are you doing?” Realize I’ve started playing in the wrong key and the number completely breaks down. | It sounds bad but it was actually no big deal. We just started it over again right. Totally nailed my solo too. |
| Suffer further performance anxiety during another competitive recital where 10 months of suffering through Rachmaninoff ends in cold sweats, frozen hands and a horrific wreck. Judge’s comment is ‘never play faster than you can think’. | Oh, I forgot to mention that I latter did master this and played the hell out of it on several subsequent occasions. Also scored a distinction on my PC exam. Yeah, bitches. |
| First time singing in college musical. Just awful. | Well, first time singing at all, actually. Felt the fear and did it anyway. Come to think of it that’s no failure at all; what am I talking about? |
| Allow an obsession over an unrequited love to darken my entire college life. Sink into self-indulgent spiral of unworthiness and manage to alienate all my closest friends. Barely speak with them for next 10 years. | One of the most painful things I’ve been through and it was entirely self inflicted. Hurt a lot. Grew a lot. As for my friends, we were simply growing apart. I made an all new group of friends which were much better for me and opened up a whole new world of opportunity. |
| Develop a phobia of social gatherings. Become socially recluse. Avoid my class yearbook photo, college formal and other social venues. | Okay, it wasn’t a phobia. I was just a bit of a loner. But with all my free time, I wrote a musical, won a territory award for excellence in performance arts, and landed a professional gig before I’d even graduated. So all in all, not a bad year. |
| First real girlfriend dumps me after three months and takes up with an actor from the show I am music-directing. | But not before I got freaky with her. Noice. |
| Consistently overreach and fall-short in my study of classical piano. Inspired by Liszt’s second Hungarian Rhapsody but fail to master it. Sustain RSI through a demanding practice regime that’s never fully corrected. Continually overshadowed by Chinese genius-kids with overbearing parents and super-human powers of concentration. | Consistently reach high, sometimes fall short, but frequently knock it out of the park. The Chinese kids were freaks at the classical stuff. But I could play rings around them in any other genre. Crowd pleaser, oh yeah. |
| Form a band and write several inspired songs but am too shy to perform them in public. We practice for several months but never do a real gig. | But this didn’t feel like a failure at all. They were two of the most interesting, genuine people and musicians I’ve had the good fortune to jam with and we had an amazing time bonding and sharing our music. It didn’t matter that it was just for us. |
| First attempt at directing / producing a stage play (which I also wrote). Nearly catatonic with anxiety before the first performance having never managed a single rehearsal with the entire cast and crew. | I was freaking out alright, but the thing went down without a hitch ’cause I had an awesome team and the show was actually a great success. And we raised money for charity. Woot. |
| Again play the romantic fool for a new love interest by sending her a lavish bouquet of flowers and a card reading ‘from your secret admirer’, latter walking around in a t-shirt emblazoned with ‘I am your secret admirer’ (and her name). Should have picked a muse without a boyfriend. Awkward. | When you’re brave enough to even think of doing this, come and talk to me about failure. |
| Realize that I’m miserable in the 9 to 5 and that I’d be better off going to a performance arts school. Since the auditions are 2 weeks away, I cram for 3 of them at once and suck on all counts. Now I’m depressed, and a failure. | Actually, much of the time I really liked my job. I just realized it wasn’t going anywhere and I could do much more with my life. The important thing is I started taking action to change things. This was a beginning, not an end. |
| Quit my dead-end job to go and make something of my life only to take it back again weeks later when the CEO woos me with his grand plans for the future. Hanging on just leads to despondency. | But despondency lead to action, action lead to my own business, travel, better projects, exciting new opportunities, and more money than I’d ever made before. Thank you dissatisfaction. |
| Unable to have a real heart-to-heart with my dad; even as he lies on his deathbed. The emotional wall between us is too much. | He was an intensely private guy who had trouble sharing that stuff. Somehow I understand him all the same. We didn’t talk about everything, but we connected in ways that will always be special. |
| Yet another romantic misadventure is over before it’s started. | After this I stop looking for a soul mate and just start looking to have fun. Wow—that works a whole lot better. |
| Compose and produce music for a show, but find, minutes before opening, that the entire program of sound and music has somehow corrupted and has to be reprogrammed. | And reprogram it I did. In 8 minutes flat. Booyah. |
| Compose and produce music for another show but a bug in the sampler deck causes a track to cut out in the middle of a live performance. |
|
| I suck at balancing levels without foldback monitors and get hammered in the review for playing everything too loud. | Don’t know if you know anything about sound, but EVERYBODY sucks at that. That’s what foldback is for. I was successful in my goal of composing and producing music for a pro-theatre production. Just remember the sound check next time. |
| Emotionally burned out, turn to a corporate path thinking it will provide a more practical track to success. Eventually just grow to resent it. | But not for long. I got out of that game and had a blast doing my own thang. |
| Having finally found a girl who loves me to bits, I break her heart by sleeping with someone else. | Dumb choice. But we talked about it and were actually much closer after that. Honesty win. |
| Spent capital and six months of humid evenings toiling in a barren, Bangkok apartment on a software product idea. Released a half-baked, buggy demo and then never promote or updated it. | Threw something at the wall but it didn’t stick. Besides which I was pretty busy earning my masters, making money in my other business and cruising around Thailand for nine months. On balance a pretty good year. |
| Run out of cash when my only consulting client decides to cut funding to product development; fly back to Australia on borrowed money to look for a new job. | I borrowed money for the ticket so I could live off my savings ’til I got back on my feet. That happened pretty quickly. And I still do work for that client till this day. |
| Land a plum management gig but quickly discover that producing work and managing people to produce said work are entirely different skills. Also discover why most managers seem to be idiots. | Had a steep learning curve here but figured it out, made some changes and delivered. This was exactly the thing I needed at the time. |
| Spend nine months building another software product which received widespread interest and praise and then lost interest and abandoned it without figuring out how to monazite. | It was a labour of love; and a raging success in many ways. I can always pick it up again later if I want to. |
| After spending three and a half years, countless hours and tens of thousands of dollars earning a masters degree in a technical field, realize I have no use for it and I should have invested everything in entrepreneurship instead. | If I had that time over I might make different choices, but it would be wrong to say all that effort went to waste. I sharpened my skills, pushed myself to excel, and earned a distinction for my work. It was also a huge selling point for me landing development contracts. Big wins on all counts. |
| Only published a single blog post for the entire month of March. Exactly 5 words in length. | You want a novel? buy a book. |
So—I’m curious. Did this change your perspective on my story? Did it change your perspective on your own story? Are there things you’ve failed at that maybe weren’t failures after all? Are there times you hid from failure but wished you hadn’t? Here’s your opportunity to come clean.
So here’s the challenge again: have you fucked up pursuit of your best life? Good for you. ‘Cause, if you’re not giving yourself the opportunity to fail big, you’re not giving yourself the opportunity to win big.
And that’s just… sad, really.
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Awesome follow up post! This is right on! Its all about perspective anyway, and you’ve got the right way to view these failures!
That makes them a success. Well done!
Right on David, thanks for the props.
I much prefer to look at life from the perspective of this post–yes, these things were f-ups in the moment, but everything turned out well, so in the end, yay.
I guess that’s the problem I had with the whole assignment–knowing it all turned out ok but trying to write it as a big fail thing seemed like a phony ploy for sympathy when I attempted it.
I tend to think of myself as a cowering wuss, but this whole discussion has made me realize, I actually try a lot of stuff. Jobs, careers, relationships, moves, religions, hobbies… I may be afraid, but if I want something, I usually go after it. And when it turns out not to be what I wanted after all, I take the (sometimes even more courageous) action required to get out of that and do something else.
I know this isn’t a popular stance, but other than being trite, I think reframing failure as “feedback” is great. I’m much more likely to go out and attempt big things if I think the worst thing that can happen is I’ll learn something and use the experience to go on and do something else that’s even better. It’s just when you put on some fake sour grapes thing and pretend you never wanted to succeed in the first place that it’s a problem, if you ask me.
I like the attitude of experimentation. Trying something just to see what will happen. Not being attached to a particular outcome, but just playing with it. It diffuses a lot of the fear of failure. Feedback works great for things that are just part of your normal learning curve, where you expect to have small set-backs or make adjustments. When you fall flat on your face or get your heart ripped open, feedback doesn’t quite cover it
I like the idea of not being attached to any particular outcome, but it’s a very different way of thinking for me. Usually what makes me want to do something is the expected outcome.
When you fall flat on your face or get your heart ripped open, feedback doesn’t quite cover it
True. I guess most of my failures are a lot more gradual than that, or they’re more in my power, or something. I can’t think of a time I really couldn’t have what I wanted; instead, what generally happens is the effort required to make it work becomes greater than my desire to have it. So I drop it and do something else that I want more. I’m sure that feels a lot different than trying your heart out but failing, and I can’t tell if this means I’m smart enough to quit wasting energy on things I no longer enjoy, or if it means I’m a big quitter who’s afraid of real failure and bails when the going gets tough. I’m not interested enough to try to figure it out right now, though–got tons of writing to do!
Hey Cara
Outcome versus detachment: you can know what you want and where you’re headed and still be detached from the outcome of particular interactions, experiments or attempts. Another way to look at it is becoming focused on principles or values rather than outcomes. For example, if you value happiness then you make sure that the way in which you do things honors and supports your happiness rather than subordinating that to trying to ‘win’ at any cost. If your mindset is experimentation, then the value that drives that is often curiosity. On the second part: becoming disenfranchised with an idea and dropping it before you have a chance to fail might be indicative of a lack of compelling motivation. That pretty much just keeps you where you are doesn’t it?
I knew there must be a corresponding list of awesomeness, and I’m glad you posted it so quickly! Had to laugh at the one about the way everyone sucks at sound…so true. And as for wanting a novel? Yeah, I do…when you write your book I’ll be first in line for a copy.
To answer your questions, yes, it changed my perspective on your story…In the first list I could sense that you weren’t hanging onto that stuff anymore, but the follow-up list really clarified that and gives us the broader picture. Awesome! As for my story, here’s my older, wiser slant on it: I was only 23 at the time, and a very immature 23 at that. I wasn’t meant to be a bass player, I found my musical calling years later as a drummer and I couldn’t be happier now. And though my relationship history sucks big-time, I don’t dwell on that anymore. The beautiful thing is that I still have the good stuff to look forward to.
Something that always felt like a failure but isn’t: I’ve always felt really young for my age, and in my teens and twenties this didn’t do much for my self-esteem. But in my forties, it feels freakin’ brilliant. I no longer feel compelled to try and act my age, and I’m reveling in my better-late-than-never blossoming. I wouldn’t trade 40 for 20 for any amount of love or money.
Yes, I have often tried to hide from my failures. But facing them makes me feel much stronger. It’s something I re-learn every day…I fall down, and I get back up. And I’ve never felt more alive!
Acting your age is boring. Unless you’re 2. Let’s be 2.
LOL
I’m being whatever feels right, and sometimes 2 is just the thing!
Okay, props for the picture of Boba Fett–bet you wouldn’t have guessed I’m a Star Wars nerd, too?
That certainly did put Friday’s post in perspective, though. If I could look at my entire life as a serious of “failures-with-benefits” instead of just “events,” I would probably learn a lot and put my self-worth in perspective.
I mean, if Charlie Sheen is any example, “winning” doesn’t matter much in life anyway.
So long as you’re putting your self worth into perspective, Annie; try this on for size: “totally fucking awesome”. Don’t beat up on yourself for a few mixed up relationships, pal. You get a free pass until you’re at least 21. If you’re Charlie Sheen: 57.
Hands down, this one is my favorite! Very profound, candid, insightful and heartwarmingly funny. Very nice, Lach.
THANK YOU BRIDGITTE! Much appreciated
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Lach, I think this is the best thing I have ever read by you. Not just the words, but the message and the perspective. Fantastic stuff.
Dude—thank YOU!
Found this post via an old post tweet of yours Matthew (and the link back to here).
Ironically, I just met Lachlan via a Satoriapp trial I signed up for last week. Had some contact and even looked at the blog briefly but your spanners post brought me back for a deeper look. It’s a gem so thanks for putting it on my radar and for closing the loop.
Forgot to add. Thanks also Lach for the great read. Can’t comment as to whether it changed my perspective on your previous item as I didn’t have one. I can say I’ve fucked up pursuit of my best life though and will no doubt do so again.
Hey Brett! Thanks for connecting and for your kind feedback—appreciated! — fuck-ups are par for the course; but hey—I’m pretty chuffed with where they’ve taken me, so not complaining. If I can be of service, just shout out—cheers!
Loved, loved, loved the perspective list!
The shifting frame is something that I work with every day. Often I ask myself or my students and/or clients: “Do you want to be right or do you want to feel good?” Life’s opportunities are all about choosing (and we always choose) to feel good.
There was one man who was so good to me/loved me, and me him: he was my first love in college. I was a senior; he a junior. We separated because of practical matters: i was going back to my home state, he had one more year of school. Hearts were broken. That was 32 years ago. I looked for him 3 different times in 32 years, but was unsuccessful in finding him.
11 months ago, after two marriages/divorces apiece, and 5 children between us, he finds me (yes, facebook); we got married 7 weeks ago and are happily everaftering.
Many people have said: “Oh my; how sad that you have been denied 32 years of this perfect love.” Right NOW is the only time we would have worked. The timing in EVERYTHING is always spot on. Really.
Thank you for your wonderful clarity on a subject on which all of us can relate
Wow, what an incredible story, Poppy! Thank you for sharing. I love your perspective on that as well. Life isn’t meant to follow the storybooks; we’re all unfolding in our own miraculous ways. There’s something perfect about this. And yes—right is so overrated.
I had a sneaking suspicion that there would be a follow-up like this, but you exceeded my expectations! Great post.
Thanks man—it wasn’t premeditated. I just realized the original post missed the mark and didn’t say what I wanted it to.
As I said on the original post, we all have options when it comes to assessing our successes and failures. I like your Option B much better as well.
Word.
Hi Lach,
As I mentioned to you a few minutes ago. This is hands down one of the best blog posts I’ve ever read. It has it all: An awesome story, pure honesty, an amazingly brave and intelligent perspective on your experiences and a sense of humor that is hard to find. I have no doubt that this will change the perspective of people’s own stories and allow them (as it did for me) to be more fair with ourselves, to be more compassionate with our past and to find a way to make every experience count for something far greater than it may have seemed to at first. Thank you again for having the b%lls to share this as well as the vision to literally show how someone can re-define their entire life in one night! -The best to you always. -Bernardo
Wow—thanks a million, Bernardo. Really appreciate your generosity and support dude. I think the golden key is to realize that reframing isn’t just some kind of consolation prize to make the best of a bad situation; but that your perspective on things really does mean everything. I’m often amazed how quickly I can flip between thinking everything’s hopeless versus being totally confident and excited about things, just by adjusting what I’m focusing on. We all need to lear to do that better.
I was going to write a big, slobbery message of gratitude but will, instead, just say “thank you” bc I really needed to “hear” this message. Awesome post.
Thank YOU, Felicia for your kind feedback. I really appreciate your thoughts. You can always put the slobbers in the mail if you feel like it. Cheers.
You really got me with your closing line… “Cause, if you’re not giving yourself the opportunity to fail big, you’re not giving yourself the opportunity to win big.” I’ve been dealing with a lot of thoughts about quitting my job and moving to Indonesia. I’ve got a good thing going here but I feel like I need something more, something different. There is a lot to be said for feeling secure, regardless of whether one really is or not. When I read this post and saw how you turned your valleys into peaks I feel a lot better about the steps I am taking to have a different life.
Hear you loud and clear buddy. Ain’t nothing more debilitating than being a little bit too comfortable. Change can be scary, especially when it’s something that effects the direction of your whole life. Throwing away all your familiar patterns and virtually starting over again. But there’s nothing more exciting either.
Good work, Lach. Then and now.
Thanks Jen
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Oh, I love to change my life overnight, so you got me curious. And although I’m a tad dissapointed because you don’t offer a step by step guide, I do really dig this post. You are absolutely right, there is something good and something bad in about everything. It just depends on what you choose to think about. Keep it up, cowboy!
Hey Maaike! Thanks for commenting; I appreciate your frankness.
I really dig the focus of your blog. As a recovering perfectionist, I can totally relate to what you’re talking about. Would love to hear more about your story / experiences. As to a step-by-step process for reframing, there’s quite a few different techniques you can use, but they all basically come down to the discipline of moment-by-moment, deciding what you want and cultivating the focus to look for it rather than things to complain about. There’s some more thoughts about that here and here. Look forward to chatting with you more and finding out more about your philosophy. Cheers.
Thanks! I’m gonna check ‘em out right away (even though it took me about three months to read your reply lol). And you’re about to read more about my experiences! I recently decided to totally focus on A Gorgeous Life + bringing even more radical honesty to the table. Scary, but I love it. I just deleted some of my other projects today. Can’t wait for the excitement to kick in!
Sounds like it already did!
I need to learn & improve as much as anyone out there, but I thought I’d add this:
See if you can find and articulate your False Paradigms and Limiting Beliefs.
Ex: My family has a long history of: Detailed-Hyperscrutiny, Perfectionism and Over-Valuing Prodigy-Level Intelligence.
The way this came across read something like this [false] paradigm:
“In this family, and in the entire world, you are either a SuperGenius Prodigy at everything you try within the first 20 minutes, or you aren’t worth the shit I just scraped off my shoe. There is zero room for any mistakes. If you do make any mistakes, it means the very core substance of your soul is completely and totally worthless; -forever.”
So: see if you can articulate the [usually] unspoken frameworks that you either have on your own as [irrationally] Limiting Beliefs or the False Paradigms you may have picked up from family, parents, grandparents, cousins, social groups, religion/religious figures, even TV & Movies.
Once you’ve given voice and shape to those frameworks, you can refine the definitions, further unpacking them with time, and then come up with fair, logical, human challenges to their flawed logic,
-on the way to becoming Derek Flint.
Best Regards.
Totally. We’re all walking round with a litany of beliefs and assumptions that totally inform and dictate our attitudes and interpretations and decisions etc. most often we’re not even aware of what they are. Beliefs about ourselves and beliefs about the world. They limit us. When we start practicing self awareness we start to uncover what they are and how they’ve been unconsciously informing our feelings and behaviour. When we can start to choose deliberately. Is this really true? Does this serve me? Who’s belief is this anyway? We can’t go back and change the past. And fortunately, we don’t have to. With awareness we can start to design what we want today. Create ourselves and our lives the way we want them.
I don’t give a shit how many slang terms were used, this was an exquisite use of the English language. Well done!
If I didn’t already have a dear friend with me who has saved my life through his wonderful words, I would definitely say that you have. Its sort of funny how much our lives seem to parallel. I’m just not quite as experienced in circling around the sun as you yet, and you just probably haven’t done as many drugs as I have. Something that I am feeling quite strongly, due to my current status of overdose victim, was a bad choice in my life. Choice is a key word in this whole thing though.
In the words of Mark Renton: “I choose life,” and as long as I’m around and sane, it’s gonna be good.
Stoked that it resonates. Thanks so much for the beautiful contribution, Robert.