October 24, 2025 • 23 mins
Most of us were taught that failure is bad. That if we fall short, it means something about who we are—our worth, our capability, our potential. But what if failure isn’t a problem at all? What if it’s the path to everything we want?
In this episode, we unpack what I call failure tolerance—the skill of building your capacity to try, fall short, feel the feelings that come with it, and keep going anyway. Because here’s the truth: when we avoid failure, we actually fail on purpose. We choose inaction to dodge discomfort, and that turns a 50% chance of failing into a 100% guarantee.
You’ll learn how to flip that pattern—how to stop avoiding failure and instead get good at it. When you do, everything changes. You stop seeing failure as evidence of your worth and start seeing it as iteration. Each “failure” becomes a puzzle piece in building something extraordinary.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Why avoiding failure is actually a form of guaranteed failure.
- How to expand your failure tolerance so you can take bigger risks with more freedom.
- The two key skills that make iteration possible (and fun):
- Evaluating what worked, what didn’t, and what you’ll tweak next time.
- Learning to feel your emotions when things don’t go as planned.
- Why mastering these two skills opens every door—to creativity, impact, and possibility.
- A behind-the-scenes look at how I do a live “retro” (retrospective) on one of my own recent attempts, breaking it down step by step so you can apply it to your own projects.
We’ll also celebrate an exciting milestone: the first few women joining the Moxie Mastermind before enrollment even opened! This six-month experience is for women ready to turn one powerful idea into something real—with community, coaching, and deep transformation along the way.
Because when you build failure tolerance, you stop being afraid of getting it wrong—and start building the life, business, and legacy that’s been waiting for you all along.
Mentioned in this episode:
- The Moxie Mastermind — 6-month group program starting in January for women ready to bring their big ideas to life.
- Retros are Everything — for a deeper dive into the reflection skill that powers iteration.
- The Practice — for building your emotional capacity to feel and process failure.
How to connect with Marie:
- On the Web | The Local Bloom
- Instagram: @the.bloom.coach
- All Things Marie on LinkTree
JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind Podcast, where we take
all of your ideas for what youwant and we turn them into real
things.
I'm your host, certified coachMarie McDonald.
Let's get into it.
Well, hello everybody, andwelcome to episode 149 of the
(00:32):
Bloom Your Mind podcast.
Here I am today.
I just got back from a wildweekend.
I was recording all of mycourses last week and then went
straight into a weekend of mydaughter's 13th birthday
celebrations where we had all ofher friends, like 35 people at
the beach for a big beach day.
(00:53):
And then I took 10 Sandy girlshome to my house and they had a
slumber party and I cooked forthem with my husband.
We cooked tacos, we cookedFrench toast in the morning.
They were giggling andshrieking.
It was the best.
Ugh, I love it so much.
And then a couple hours later, Ihopped on a plane to go to
Sacramento, where I led atwo-day executive retreat for an
(01:16):
executive team and amission-driven organization.
And it was amazing and wonderfuland so fulfilling to work with
change makers who are sodedicated to clear communication
and good work in the world.
And it energized me for the workthat we are about to do.
So you can listen to a fewdifferent episodes on this
(01:38):
podcast to get more informationabout what we're talking today.
But today we're going to doanother episode that's really
focused in on what we think ofas failure.
Here on the podcast with mystudents, we talk about failure
with terms like failuretolerance, developing failure
tolerance, developing thecapacity to fail without
(02:00):
freaking out.
We call that fail like we meanit.
We're going to fail like we meanit.
We're going to fail like we areiterating on something that we
care about.
That's what we mean by failinglike we mean it.
Failure tolerance is how we havelearned to unwind the weird
thinking that the vast majorityof us have internalized in our
(02:24):
system that failure is bad.
We've learned this over and overagain from the time when we're
little kids and the authorityfigures in our life make funny
expressions when we do somethingthat they don't like.
And then we internalize that aswe're bad if we fail.
And then society really backsthat up.
We are so afraid of failure thatwe fail on purpose by avoiding
(02:48):
the things we might fail at, bystaying in action.
And again, you can listen tofail like you mean it.
That's the podcast episode ifyou want to get real deep into
this.
So here's what I talk about onthat podcast.
I'll give you a quick example.
If we think there's a 50% chanceof failing at something, we
intentionally avoid doing thatthing and thereby increase the
(03:09):
chance of failure to 100%.
That always blows my mind.
I love this idea.
We're just failing through nottrying instead of failing
through trying and not gettingit right.
Strictly because we are afraidof what people will think, andor
we are afraid of the feelingsthat we'll have if we fail.
(03:32):
That's it.
That's why we're avoidingfailure.
And when we avoid failure by notdoing anything, we're increasing
our chance of failure to 100%.
We're avoiding the feeling ofshame or embarrassment or
self-doubt or whatever we'regoing to feel when we don't hit
our goal.
But what's wild is that failureis 100% guaranteed for all of
(03:53):
us.
So we are avoiding somethingthat is inevitable.
We are all going to fail everysingle day.
We're going to fail at multiplethings.
We know that it, we are notgoing to get anything perfect on
our first try of anything everthat we ever ever do.
Failure is not only guaranteedall day, every day, but it is
definitely guaranteed when wetry something for the first
(04:16):
time.
There's going to be some part ofit that isn't great.
We're not going to get itperfect.
So isn't it a better practice toget good at feeling the feelings
that come up when we fail?
Isn't that better than justavoiding the things that we
might fail at and increasing thelikelihood of failure to 100%?
What's really ironic aboutgetting better at practicing
(04:39):
being able to allow the feelingsthat come up when we fail is
that the better we get attolerating failure, the less
failure bugs us.
It's like when we do reps andwe're lifting weights or
whatever, then the weights don'tfeel that heavy anymore.
The more we increase ourcapacity to fail and feel
whatever feeling comes up whenwe do, the less those feelings
(05:02):
come up at all.
I know because this is, I haveexperienced it.
We build the muscle of tryingand then sometimes getting it
right and most of the timegetting it kind of right, but
missing the mark in some ways,and just tweaking things until
we like the result.
We do that and we do it againand again, and we start to not
think of it as failure, but astrying things, evaluating what
(05:25):
went well and what didn't, andthen trying again and again,
tweaking things again and againuntil we like what we see.
And all that is, folks, isiteration.
It is like actually inevitableto iterate.
We have just gotten it totallybackwards.
We think we that failure is bad,but failure is absolutely
(05:48):
guaranteed, absolutelyinevitable.
And we don't even have to usethe word failure.
We're just iterating.
We're trying and trying againuntil we get things right.
So when we do that, when we getgood at iterating, failure stops
being a thing.
And iteration is what replacesit.
We just think of the idea ofiteration, it's normal.
And it starts being fun.
(06:09):
That's what it's like for me.
Tweaking things until they workis like putting a puzzle
together.
And puzzles are fun, I think,don't you?
And when we fail again and againand tweak things and try again,
when we develop that skill ofiteration, as opposed to
thinking everything we do thatdoesn't work is about our value
or our character or likesomething's wrong with us if we
(06:30):
fail, which is totallyillogical.
When we build that skill,everything becomes possible.
It's amazing.
Literally, we can have aninfinite number of attempts at
anything because we're okay.
We can tolerate iteration.
And if we have an infinitenumber of attempts, we're gonna
get there eventually.
So all the doors open up,everything becomes possible.
(06:53):
And we get out of our own way,and we can pretty much do
anything we really, really wantto.
So, like, what do you really,really want to do?
That becomes possible.
That scary thing that you'relike, I can't do it because I'll
fail.
It's okay.
All you have to do is developthe skill of failure tolerance.
(07:14):
And what makes that processpossible is the step where we
stop and look at our attempt atsomething and think about what
worked, what didn't work, andwhat we want to do differently
next time.
That is one of only two skillsthat we need to master in order
to master iteration.
That's the first skill to learnfrom our iterations, to learn
from each attempt so we knowwhat to tweak in our next try.
(07:37):
There is a podcast episodecalled Retros Are Everything.
And you can learn all aboutretros in that.
I'm gonna go into them in alittle bit here too.
So that's the first skill isevaluating doing a retro on what
worked and didn't work.
And the second skill is what wetalked about to feel whatever
the feeling is that comes upwhen our attempt at something
doesn't go the way we want itto.
That's it.
(07:58):
That is all those two skills.
Open up everything.
So go to the episode called thepractice for the skill of
tolerating the emotions thatcome up when you fail.
And go to the episode calledRetros Are Everything for that
first skill of evaluating yourattempts.
But today I'm gonna do a reallife retro on an attempt at
(08:20):
something that I just did toillustrate kind of how this all
works.
And it also shows a step-by-stepexample of using some of the
tools that I teach on thispodcast to break down and
approach something you'reworking on when it goes off
track, when it takes too long,when it just starts to seem
impossible.
Like this, I just can't.
Oh my gosh, I can't do it.
(08:41):
So I'm gonna walk you through anexample of this iterative
approach to this thing I wasrecently doing, and we'll
illustrate some of theseconcepts.
So let's do it.
All right.
So I am re-recording all of mycontent for the Bloom Room, and
for each one of the courses thatI'm doing, I have multiple
(09:01):
classes to edit.
I had a whole series of 18videos that I needed to edit and
have ready for my videographer.
And I've talked a little bitabout this on the podcast
because the first time myvideographer was gonna come, I
had migraines and I had tocancel.
I had to cancel my podcast, andI also had to cancel and
(09:23):
reschedule my videographer.
So by the time the second roundof the videographer filming me
came up, I had a couple weeksleft, and then I had a week
left, and I had been workingtowards getting all of these
outlines ready to go.
(09:45):
I had a week left, and I had 12videos left to refine.
Now, this may seem totallydoable to you, but I had a full
slate of clients on my calendar.
I was driving for a field tripfor my daughter the Thursday and
Friday of that weekend, and thentaking her to a Chapel Roan
(10:05):
concert for her birthday.
So it was a very, very fullweek.
I had very limited hours left.
And what the design constraintwas, the trick was, the problem
that I was solving was I hadanticipated an hour and a half
to edit each class.
And it had taken me more likefour to five hours per class.
(10:26):
When you multiply that times 18classes, hot damn.
That is a lot of hours.
So when I looked at the 12outlines that I still had yet to
finalize, I had put a couplehours into each one already.
So it wasn't five hours per, butit was about two hours per
outline that I knew I had leftto do.
And I looked at the week aheadof me, it felt unbelievably
(10:49):
daunting.
It felt like I was sayingoriginally, like this project
has gone so far off track.
I so misestimated what the timewas going to be like in order to
get to these two the beautifulplace that I want them, that it
felt impossible, felt kind ofimpossible to do it.
And I found myself feeling thatfail ahead of time, feeling like
(11:11):
I maybe should just reschedulethis.
Maybe I should just increase thelikelihood of my failure from
50% to 100%.
It just felt like no flippingway am I going to be able to
pull this off.
And so I sat down and I wrotedown all my thinking about it
and I underlined the thoughtsthat were not helping me.
(11:31):
And I did some regenerativethought models and I coached
myself to think about this in adifferent way.
And these are the things that Idid.
So in my retro, when I look atmy filming project, these are
the things that I will outlineas what worked in this project.
(11:52):
What worked is that when Ilooked at re-recording the
videos, the first tool that Iuse that I teach is I measured
the gain over the gap.
I looked at how far I've alreadycome.
So I celebrated the three videosthat I had 100% ready to go for
Monday.
And I felt how good it felt inmy body to know that three of
(12:15):
them were ready to go.
Like even when I had one readyto go, it felt really, really
great, like a weight had lifted.
And I had experienced that threetimes already and knew I was
going to experience that 12 moretimes before Monday.
So I had 12 videos left torefine, which felt really like a
lot.
And what I did is I broke themdown into milestones.
(12:37):
So I looked at my calendar andinstead of thinking of the 12
videos, which overwhelms thebrain, I broke them down into
doable steps, into one and ahalf hour chunks.
And I sprinkled those one and ahalf hour chunks in everywhere
that I could do that in mycalendar.
That made it feel like everysingle time I got through one of
(12:59):
those one and a half hourchunks, I was gonna feel that
same feeling of excitement.
Or I was gonna need another halfhour.
So I was giving myself a littleless time than I anticipated to
try to push myself to be alittle bit more productive and
do B minus work if I could.
But if I really needed anotherhalf hour, I could add it.
And I broke it down into verydoable chunks.
(13:22):
That is two more of the skillsthat I teach on this podcast:
breaking things down intochunks, doing B minus work,
don't aim for perfection, andalso putting things into my
calendar by the result I wasgonna create at the end of that
time.
So in each one and a half hourchunk, I wrote the name of the
script that I wanted to havefinished in that time.
(13:43):
So I knew exactly what I wasplanning to do in that one and a
half hour.
So when I sit down at mycomputer or with my outline in
front of me, I wasn't gonna beoverwhelmed by the thing on my
calendar saying work on scripts,because that my brain was just
gonna be like, no way, flip out,no way.
It's too big.
But if all I have to do is towork on the script about beliefs
(14:06):
and roles, and I have one and ahalf hours to do that, that's a
bite-sized chunk for my brainand my nervous system.
Okay, the next thing that I didis I asked for help.
I asked for help from supportsystems to watch my kids to buy
me like two more one out, oneand a half hour chunks after
school one day.
To those were friends of mine.
(14:26):
I just asked to watch my kids.
I asked my husband to take themto school a couple days, even
though he was having a busy workweek.
And I asked AI to be my grammarand editing check.
So I didn't want AI to writeanything for me because I don't
like how it feels and soundswhen I read anything that AI
writes for me for the most part.
But I did ask AI to catchgrammar and editing mistakes.
(14:48):
And I actually asked AI too tojust check for like logical
flow.
So it showed me, ah, you make aleap of logic here.
And that was really helpful.
The next part is nostalgia fornow, which is enjoying where you
are.
This is the part of the process.
I always love to encourage mystudents to say, this is the
part when, if you were lookingback on this process, what about
(15:09):
it would be kind of magical?
What about it would you miss?
And I thought about the energyof rewriting this, this content
and how it's kind of exciting.
And all these concepts are likebetter than I ever imagined, and
they're all coming together.
And every single single time Ido an outline, it feels really
good.
So I enjoyed the editingprocess.
And oh my God, did I enjoy theediting process?
(15:32):
I had like colored pens andhighlighters, and I was taking
chunks of one, you know, aconcept out of one outline and
putting it over into another oneand refining language and
getting it so smooth and clearso that it will get the most
people, the most clear, youknow, value and outcomes that I
could possibly give to peopleout of my material.
(15:53):
And it was really wonderful.
I totally enjoyed the process.
I just practiced being presentin each one of those one and a
half hour chunks.
Instead of thinking aboutanything else, I was just
present with that material andhow much did I love that
material.
And then the very last skill,the last of the two, actually,
there are two more.
(16:13):
The last thing that I teach onthis podcast that I practiced
that worked is I let it go.
After planning my best plan anddoing my most focused work and
setting myself up with thesupport that I needed and
everything we just talked about,I decided however far I get is
how far I get, and that's howmuch material I'll have ready.
(16:33):
And I'm okay with that.
So I just let go.
The very last skill is to remindmyself if I'm stressing out
about this, it's stressing outabout a goal that I set, which
is entirely arbitrary.
I'm the one who decided to dothis project.
I'm the one that hired thevideographer.
So if I am hard on myself fornot meeting these deadlines, I
(16:58):
am just the deadlines, I I justmade them up to start with.
And that is not always the case,but it was really helpful for me
to remind myself that it is thecase in this situation, that I'm
choosing my perspective entirelyand I'm choosing to do this work
entirely.
And my whole purpose in doingthis work is to help people.
It's not about me.
(17:20):
It's not about whether I hit adeadline or not.
And so refocusing on my why,which is to help women and to
help humans get out of their ownway and overcome their belief
systems that are limiting them,so that they contribute from
their deep strengths and theirunique strengths and their
heart's longing in ways thatlight them up and turn them on
(17:43):
and make them love their lives,but they also are contributing
to the world in a way that healsthe world, makes the world a
better place.
That's my whole purpose.
So if that's what I'm up to,there is no point in getting
upset about which outlines aredone and which are not.
Let's just get as many of themdone as I can and then figure
out what to do next.
So those are all tools that Iteach on this podcast that I
(18:06):
just used myself.
And it ended up where I got 10of the videos totally written,
not 12.
I got to practice eight of themwith a videographer.
The lights never came that wehad ordered a week before that
were supposed to be like atwo-day delivery.
They never got there.
So the videographer days endedup being just pre-production
(18:29):
days, anyways.
We had to reschedule our filmingdays because we didn't have the
lights.
And it was perfect.
I got to really feel out all thecontent.
I got to practice recording themall.
He and I got to set up all ofour places, all of our sets
where we're going to film, gotto know each other better, got
to laugh, got to like test allthe equipment and the mics.
(18:51):
I don't know what we would havedone without that pre-production
day, to be honest.
So it all ended up beingperfect, but there were some
very intentional skills I usedalong the way.
So I hope that's helpful to you.
When I got to the what didn'twork about the project, really,
it was just the time that Iestimated for editing, which I
couldn't know until I did it.
So what I'll do differently nexttime is I will actually schedule
(19:15):
way more time to edit myoutlines, anticipate how long it
takes because now I know I can'tknow until I try.
And I will also anticipate howmuch I love to edit because that
was really fun.
So that's what I've got for youtoday.
And I want to close out by alsocelebrating that a few people, a
few fabulous women have enrolledin the Moxie mastermind before
(19:38):
I've even officially startedenrolling it.
I'm so excited.
They are some of the mostamazing women that I have ever
met.
And this is a group of women whois starting at the end of
January into my six-monthmastermind at six months
together, turning one idea eachinto a real thing, one big idea
for something that is wheretheir passion meets the world's
need.
(19:59):
So it's a group coachingprogram, which is my favorite
type of coaching, way more thanone-on-one.
I love one-on-one.
But what happens in one-on-onecoaching is that me as the
coach, I hold space for myclients that is non-judgmental.
And I ask that they hold thattype of space for themselves,
but it's hard for them to dothat because their own judgment
(20:19):
of themselves comes up.
But when we're in a groupcoaching program and we see
sometimes we get coachedourselves, that's great.
And then other times we seepeople get coached in front of
us, we don't have all thatself-judgment.
And so we learn from theircoaching in a way that sometimes
is way more effective for us toget what we need to learn
applied to ourselves.
(20:40):
I hear it from my group coachingclients over and over and over
and over that it's their veryfavorite modality.
And I know for me, I don't hireone-on-one coaches.
I go into coaching programsbecause it's way more effective.
I get a lot more out of it.
And I also get a group ofsupportive peers who love me and
a bunch of material and acohort.
So this is an amazing group thatis starting in January.
(21:03):
We have an in-person retreat inApril.
It is an amazing sisterhood thathelps each person get out of our
own way by rewriting whateverbeliefs we have, telling us we
can't or we shouldn't do thething we're dreaming of.
So we're taking real ideas andmaking them real in a think tank
of these brilliant, big-hearted,open, interesting, amazing
women.
(21:24):
Because my dream, my own dream,is that at the end of the next
five or 10 years, I will have aroster of women who have been in
the Moxie mastermind that madeideas real that made the world a
better place.
And those ideas that would havestayed stuck in their head, that
me and the Moxie group of womenhelped them erase whatever
(21:45):
things were in their way, putthere by socialization or a
patriarchal culture that madethem think that they can't or
they shouldn't.
So we're starting with the firstgroup in January.
I will be leading these everysix months, but January is going
to be unbelievable and I can'twait.
So if you know a woman who hasan idea to make real, send her
my way.
(22:05):
And if you are that woman, comemy way.
We are about to make some bigmoves together in a sisterhood
that will just change your life.
So reach out if you'reinterested.
That is what I have got for youthis week, and I will see you
next week.
(22:29):
If you like what you're hearingon the podcast, you gotta come
and join us in the Bloom Room.
This is a year-round membershipwhere we take all of these
concepts and we apply them toreal life in a community where
we have each other's backs andwe bring out the best in each
other.
We're all there to make ourideas real.
(22:49):
One idea at a time.
Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind Podcast, where we take
all of your ideas for what youwant and we turn them into real
things.
I'm your host, certified coachMarie McDonald.
Let's get into it.
Well, hello everybody, andwelcome to episode 149 of the
(00:32):
Bloom Your Mind podcast.
Here I am today.
I just got back from a wildweekend.
I was recording all of mycourses last week and then went
straight into a weekend of mydaughter's 13th birthday
celebrations where we had all ofher friends, like 35 people at
the beach for a big beach day.
(00:53):
And then I took 10 Sandy girlshome to my house and they had a
slumber party and I cooked forthem with my husband.
We cooked tacos, we cookedFrench toast in the morning.
They were giggling andshrieking.
It was the best.
Ugh, I love it so much.
And then a couple hours later, Ihopped on a plane to go to
Sacramento, where I led atwo-day executive retreat for an
(01:16):
executive team and amission-driven organization.
And it was amazing and wonderfuland so fulfilling to work with
change makers who are sodedicated to clear communication
and good work in the world.
And it energized me for the workthat we are about to do.
So you can listen to a fewdifferent episodes on this
(01:38):
podcast to get more informationabout what we're talking today.
But today we're going to doanother episode that's really
focused in on what we think ofas failure.
Here on the podcast with mystudents, we talk about failure
with terms like failuretolerance, developing failure
tolerance, developing thecapacity to fail without
(02:00):
freaking out.
We call that fail like we meanit.
We're going to fail like we meanit.
We're going to fail like we areiterating on something that we
care about.
That's what we mean by failinglike we mean it.
Failure tolerance is how we havelearned to unwind the weird
thinking that the vast majorityof us have internalized in our
(02:24):
system that failure is bad.
We've learned this over and overagain from the time when we're
little kids and the authorityfigures in our life make funny
expressions when we do somethingthat they don't like.
And then we internalize that aswe're bad if we fail.
And then society really backsthat up.
We are so afraid of failure thatwe fail on purpose by avoiding
(02:48):
the things we might fail at, bystaying in action.
And again, you can listen tofail like you mean it.
That's the podcast episode ifyou want to get real deep into
this.
So here's what I talk about onthat podcast.
I'll give you a quick example.
If we think there's a 50% chanceof failing at something, we
intentionally avoid doing thatthing and thereby increase the
(03:09):
chance of failure to 100%.
That always blows my mind.
I love this idea.
We're just failing through nottrying instead of failing
through trying and not gettingit right.
Strictly because we are afraidof what people will think, andor
we are afraid of the feelingsthat we'll have if we fail.
(03:32):
That's it.
That's why we're avoidingfailure.
And when we avoid failure by notdoing anything, we're increasing
our chance of failure to 100%.
We're avoiding the feeling ofshame or embarrassment or
self-doubt or whatever we'regoing to feel when we don't hit
our goal.
But what's wild is that failureis 100% guaranteed for all of
(03:53):
us.
So we are avoiding somethingthat is inevitable.
We are all going to fail everysingle day.
We're going to fail at multiplethings.
We know that it, we are notgoing to get anything perfect on
our first try of anything everthat we ever ever do.
Failure is not only guaranteedall day, every day, but it is
definitely guaranteed when wetry something for the first
(04:16):
time.
There's going to be some part ofit that isn't great.
We're not going to get itperfect.
So isn't it a better practice toget good at feeling the feelings
that come up when we fail?
Isn't that better than justavoiding the things that we
might fail at and increasing thelikelihood of failure to 100%?
What's really ironic aboutgetting better at practicing
(04:39):
being able to allow the feelingsthat come up when we fail is
that the better we get attolerating failure, the less
failure bugs us.
It's like when we do reps andwe're lifting weights or
whatever, then the weights don'tfeel that heavy anymore.
The more we increase ourcapacity to fail and feel
whatever feeling comes up whenwe do, the less those feelings
(05:02):
come up at all.
I know because this is, I haveexperienced it.
We build the muscle of tryingand then sometimes getting it
right and most of the timegetting it kind of right, but
missing the mark in some ways,and just tweaking things until
we like the result.
We do that and we do it againand again, and we start to not
think of it as failure, but astrying things, evaluating what
(05:25):
went well and what didn't, andthen trying again and again,
tweaking things again and againuntil we like what we see.
And all that is, folks, isiteration.
It is like actually inevitableto iterate.
We have just gotten it totallybackwards.
We think we that failure is bad,but failure is absolutely
(05:48):
guaranteed, absolutelyinevitable.
And we don't even have to usethe word failure.
We're just iterating.
We're trying and trying againuntil we get things right.
So when we do that, when we getgood at iterating, failure stops
being a thing.
And iteration is what replacesit.
We just think of the idea ofiteration, it's normal.
And it starts being fun.
(06:09):
That's what it's like for me.
Tweaking things until they workis like putting a puzzle
together.
And puzzles are fun, I think,don't you?
And when we fail again and againand tweak things and try again,
when we develop that skill ofiteration, as opposed to
thinking everything we do thatdoesn't work is about our value
or our character or likesomething's wrong with us if we
(06:30):
fail, which is totallyillogical.
When we build that skill,everything becomes possible.
It's amazing.
Literally, we can have aninfinite number of attempts at
anything because we're okay.
We can tolerate iteration.
And if we have an infinitenumber of attempts, we're gonna
get there eventually.
So all the doors open up,everything becomes possible.
(06:53):
And we get out of our own way,and we can pretty much do
anything we really, really wantto.
So, like, what do you really,really want to do?
That becomes possible.
That scary thing that you'relike, I can't do it because I'll
fail.
It's okay.
All you have to do is developthe skill of failure tolerance.
(07:14):
And what makes that processpossible is the step where we
stop and look at our attempt atsomething and think about what
worked, what didn't work, andwhat we want to do differently
next time.
That is one of only two skillsthat we need to master in order
to master iteration.
That's the first skill to learnfrom our iterations, to learn
from each attempt so we knowwhat to tweak in our next try.
(07:37):
There is a podcast episodecalled Retros Are Everything.
And you can learn all aboutretros in that.
I'm gonna go into them in alittle bit here too.
So that's the first skill isevaluating doing a retro on what
worked and didn't work.
And the second skill is what wetalked about to feel whatever
the feeling is that comes upwhen our attempt at something
doesn't go the way we want itto.
That's it.
(07:58):
That is all those two skills.
Open up everything.
So go to the episode called thepractice for the skill of
tolerating the emotions thatcome up when you fail.
And go to the episode calledRetros Are Everything for that
first skill of evaluating yourattempts.
But today I'm gonna do a reallife retro on an attempt at
(08:20):
something that I just did toillustrate kind of how this all
works.
And it also shows a step-by-stepexample of using some of the
tools that I teach on thispodcast to break down and
approach something you'reworking on when it goes off
track, when it takes too long,when it just starts to seem
impossible.
Like this, I just can't.
Oh my gosh, I can't do it.
(08:41):
So I'm gonna walk you through anexample of this iterative
approach to this thing I wasrecently doing, and we'll
illustrate some of theseconcepts.
So let's do it.
All right.
So I am re-recording all of mycontent for the Bloom Room, and
for each one of the courses thatI'm doing, I have multiple
(09:01):
classes to edit.
I had a whole series of 18videos that I needed to edit and
have ready for my videographer.
And I've talked a little bitabout this on the podcast
because the first time myvideographer was gonna come, I
had migraines and I had tocancel.
I had to cancel my podcast, andI also had to cancel and
(09:23):
reschedule my videographer.
So by the time the second roundof the videographer filming me
came up, I had a couple weeksleft, and then I had a week
left, and I had been workingtowards getting all of these
outlines ready to go.
(09:45):
I had a week left, and I had 12videos left to refine.
Now, this may seem totallydoable to you, but I had a full
slate of clients on my calendar.
I was driving for a field tripfor my daughter the Thursday and
Friday of that weekend, and thentaking her to a Chapel Roan
(10:05):
concert for her birthday.
So it was a very, very fullweek.
I had very limited hours left.
And what the design constraintwas, the trick was, the problem
that I was solving was I hadanticipated an hour and a half
to edit each class.
And it had taken me more likefour to five hours per class.
(10:26):
When you multiply that times 18classes, hot damn.
That is a lot of hours.
So when I looked at the 12outlines that I still had yet to
finalize, I had put a couplehours into each one already.
So it wasn't five hours per, butit was about two hours per
outline that I knew I had leftto do.
And I looked at the week aheadof me, it felt unbelievably
(10:49):
daunting.
It felt like I was sayingoriginally, like this project
has gone so far off track.
I so misestimated what the timewas going to be like in order to
get to these two the beautifulplace that I want them, that it
felt impossible, felt kind ofimpossible to do it.
And I found myself feeling thatfail ahead of time, feeling like
(11:11):
I maybe should just reschedulethis.
Maybe I should just increase thelikelihood of my failure from
50% to 100%.
It just felt like no flippingway am I going to be able to
pull this off.
And so I sat down and I wrotedown all my thinking about it
and I underlined the thoughtsthat were not helping me.
(11:31):
And I did some regenerativethought models and I coached
myself to think about this in adifferent way.
And these are the things that Idid.
So in my retro, when I look atmy filming project, these are
the things that I will outlineas what worked in this project.
(11:52):
What worked is that when Ilooked at re-recording the
videos, the first tool that Iuse that I teach is I measured
the gain over the gap.
I looked at how far I've alreadycome.
So I celebrated the three videosthat I had 100% ready to go for
Monday.
And I felt how good it felt inmy body to know that three of
(12:15):
them were ready to go.
Like even when I had one readyto go, it felt really, really
great, like a weight had lifted.
And I had experienced that threetimes already and knew I was
going to experience that 12 moretimes before Monday.
So I had 12 videos left torefine, which felt really like a
lot.
And what I did is I broke themdown into milestones.
(12:37):
So I looked at my calendar andinstead of thinking of the 12
videos, which overwhelms thebrain, I broke them down into
doable steps, into one and ahalf hour chunks.
And I sprinkled those one and ahalf hour chunks in everywhere
that I could do that in mycalendar.
That made it feel like everysingle time I got through one of
(12:59):
those one and a half hourchunks, I was gonna feel that
same feeling of excitement.
Or I was gonna need another halfhour.
So I was giving myself a littleless time than I anticipated to
try to push myself to be alittle bit more productive and
do B minus work if I could.
But if I really needed anotherhalf hour, I could add it.
And I broke it down into verydoable chunks.
(13:22):
That is two more of the skillsthat I teach on this podcast:
breaking things down intochunks, doing B minus work,
don't aim for perfection, andalso putting things into my
calendar by the result I wasgonna create at the end of that
time.
So in each one and a half hourchunk, I wrote the name of the
script that I wanted to havefinished in that time.
(13:43):
So I knew exactly what I wasplanning to do in that one and a
half hour.
So when I sit down at mycomputer or with my outline in
front of me, I wasn't gonna beoverwhelmed by the thing on my
calendar saying work on scripts,because that my brain was just
gonna be like, no way, flip out,no way.
It's too big.
But if all I have to do is towork on the script about beliefs
(14:06):
and roles, and I have one and ahalf hours to do that, that's a
bite-sized chunk for my brainand my nervous system.
Okay, the next thing that I didis I asked for help.
I asked for help from supportsystems to watch my kids to buy
me like two more one out, oneand a half hour chunks after
school one day.
To those were friends of mine.
(14:26):
I just asked to watch my kids.
I asked my husband to take themto school a couple days, even
though he was having a busy workweek.
And I asked AI to be my grammarand editing check.
So I didn't want AI to writeanything for me because I don't
like how it feels and soundswhen I read anything that AI
writes for me for the most part.
But I did ask AI to catchgrammar and editing mistakes.
(14:48):
And I actually asked AI too tojust check for like logical
flow.
So it showed me, ah, you make aleap of logic here.
And that was really helpful.
The next part is nostalgia fornow, which is enjoying where you
are.
This is the part of the process.
I always love to encourage mystudents to say, this is the
part when, if you were lookingback on this process, what about
(15:09):
it would be kind of magical?
What about it would you miss?
And I thought about the energyof rewriting this, this content
and how it's kind of exciting.
And all these concepts are likebetter than I ever imagined, and
they're all coming together.
And every single single time Ido an outline, it feels really
good.
So I enjoyed the editingprocess.
And oh my God, did I enjoy theediting process?
(15:32):
I had like colored pens andhighlighters, and I was taking
chunks of one, you know, aconcept out of one outline and
putting it over into another oneand refining language and
getting it so smooth and clearso that it will get the most
people, the most clear, youknow, value and outcomes that I
could possibly give to peopleout of my material.
(15:53):
And it was really wonderful.
I totally enjoyed the process.
I just practiced being presentin each one of those one and a
half hour chunks.
Instead of thinking aboutanything else, I was just
present with that material andhow much did I love that
material.
And then the very last skill,the last of the two, actually,
there are two more.
(16:13):
The last thing that I teach onthis podcast that I practiced
that worked is I let it go.
After planning my best plan anddoing my most focused work and
setting myself up with thesupport that I needed and
everything we just talked about,I decided however far I get is
how far I get, and that's howmuch material I'll have ready.
(16:33):
And I'm okay with that.
So I just let go.
The very last skill is to remindmyself if I'm stressing out
about this, it's stressing outabout a goal that I set, which
is entirely arbitrary.
I'm the one who decided to dothis project.
I'm the one that hired thevideographer.
So if I am hard on myself fornot meeting these deadlines, I
(16:58):
am just the deadlines, I I justmade them up to start with.
And that is not always the case,but it was really helpful for me
to remind myself that it is thecase in this situation, that I'm
choosing my perspective entirelyand I'm choosing to do this work
entirely.
And my whole purpose in doingthis work is to help people.
It's not about me.
(17:20):
It's not about whether I hit adeadline or not.
And so refocusing on my why,which is to help women and to
help humans get out of their ownway and overcome their belief
systems that are limiting them,so that they contribute from
their deep strengths and theirunique strengths and their
heart's longing in ways thatlight them up and turn them on
(17:43):
and make them love their lives,but they also are contributing
to the world in a way that healsthe world, makes the world a
better place.
That's my whole purpose.
So if that's what I'm up to,there is no point in getting
upset about which outlines aredone and which are not.
Let's just get as many of themdone as I can and then figure
out what to do next.
So those are all tools that Iteach on this podcast that I
(18:06):
just used myself.
And it ended up where I got 10of the videos totally written,
not 12.
I got to practice eight of themwith a videographer.
The lights never came that wehad ordered a week before that
were supposed to be like atwo-day delivery.
They never got there.
So the videographer days endedup being just pre-production
(18:29):
days, anyways.
We had to reschedule our filmingdays because we didn't have the
lights.
And it was perfect.
I got to really feel out all thecontent.
I got to practice recording themall.
He and I got to set up all ofour places, all of our sets
where we're going to film, gotto know each other better, got
to laugh, got to like test allthe equipment and the mics.
(18:51):
I don't know what we would havedone without that pre-production
day, to be honest.
So it all ended up beingperfect, but there were some
very intentional skills I usedalong the way.
So I hope that's helpful to you.
When I got to the what didn'twork about the project, really,
it was just the time that Iestimated for editing, which I
couldn't know until I did it.
So what I'll do differently nexttime is I will actually schedule
(19:15):
way more time to edit myoutlines, anticipate how long it
takes because now I know I can'tknow until I try.
And I will also anticipate howmuch I love to edit because that
was really fun.
So that's what I've got for youtoday.
And I want to close out by alsocelebrating that a few people, a
few fabulous women have enrolledin the Moxie mastermind before
(19:38):
I've even officially startedenrolling it.
I'm so excited.
They are some of the mostamazing women that I have ever
met.
And this is a group of women whois starting at the end of
January into my six-monthmastermind at six months
together, turning one idea eachinto a real thing, one big idea
for something that is wheretheir passion meets the world's
need.
(19:59):
So it's a group coachingprogram, which is my favorite
type of coaching, way more thanone-on-one.
I love one-on-one.
But what happens in one-on-onecoaching is that me as the
coach, I hold space for myclients that is non-judgmental.
And I ask that they hold thattype of space for themselves,
but it's hard for them to dothat because their own judgment
(20:19):
of themselves comes up.
But when we're in a groupcoaching program and we see
sometimes we get coachedourselves, that's great.
And then other times we seepeople get coached in front of
us, we don't have all thatself-judgment.
And so we learn from theircoaching in a way that sometimes
is way more effective for us toget what we need to learn
applied to ourselves.
(20:40):
I hear it from my group coachingclients over and over and over
and over that it's their veryfavorite modality.
And I know for me, I don't hireone-on-one coaches.
I go into coaching programsbecause it's way more effective.
I get a lot more out of it.
And I also get a group ofsupportive peers who love me and
a bunch of material and acohort.
So this is an amazing group thatis starting in January.
(21:03):
We have an in-person retreat inApril.
It is an amazing sisterhood thathelps each person get out of our
own way by rewriting whateverbeliefs we have, telling us we
can't or we shouldn't do thething we're dreaming of.
So we're taking real ideas andmaking them real in a think tank
of these brilliant, big-hearted,open, interesting, amazing
women.
(21:24):
Because my dream, my own dream,is that at the end of the next
five or 10 years, I will have aroster of women who have been in
the Moxie mastermind that madeideas real that made the world a
better place.
And those ideas that would havestayed stuck in their head, that
me and the Moxie group of womenhelped them erase whatever
(21:45):
things were in their way, putthere by socialization or a
patriarchal culture that madethem think that they can't or
they shouldn't.
So we're starting with the firstgroup in January.
I will be leading these everysix months, but January is going
to be unbelievable and I can'twait.
So if you know a woman who hasan idea to make real, send her
my way.
(22:05):
And if you are that woman, comemy way.
We are about to make some bigmoves together in a sisterhood
that will just change your life.
So reach out if you'reinterested.
That is what I have got for youthis week, and I will see you
next week.
(22:29):
If you like what you're hearingon the podcast, you gotta come
and join us in the Bloom Room.
This is a year-round membershipwhere we take all of these
concepts and we apply them toreal life in a community where
we have each other's backs andwe bring out the best in each
other.
We're all there to make ourideas real.
(22:49):
One idea at a time.
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