January 21, 2024 • 19 mins
Why do we shudder at the thought of failure? Let's redefine that gut-wrenching feeling and transform it into a source of empowerment. Peel back the layers of discomfort and consider a new perspective: failure as a pivotal part of the learning process. No longer a mark of defeat, but a badge of experience. Join us as we navigate through the complexities of failure and discover how to harness its hidden potential.
More info: https://www.thejourneyblueprint.com/
Contact: Julie@thejourneyblueprint.com
Read the book: https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Blueprint-Following-Heros-Control/dp/0692132562/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey everyone and welcome to this week's podcast
episode.
Thank you for being here andfor being a part of the creation
of this through your questionsand sharing your journeys.
It means a great deal to me.
It reminds me, when things gethard and I don't know what I'm
doing and I have no idea if thisis making a difference at all,
and when I feel like a failure,that the journey is what matters
(00:31):
.
In fact, I want to talk aboutfailure today because coming to
see it and change myrelationship with it has been
one of my own personal journeysthat has been, honestly, pretty
intense, and so, just in casefailure and the fear of failure
has been a difficult part ofyour journey, I hope to share at
(00:51):
least a couple of things todaythat will be helpful, especially
as we put failure in thecontext of journeys, which is
why we're here.
So, to start off, when we talkabout failure, there are a lot
of emotions that come up.
In fact, if you take a momentright now to note for yourself
what comes up for you when youthink of failure, what feelings,
(01:14):
what words, what experiences,chances are good that there is a
lot of discomfort there, a lotof heartache, maybe even a lot
of shame.
There could be anger or anxietyor sadness and maybe more.
Why is that?
How is this one thing able tocreate such a range of difficult
(01:37):
emotions?
And what is failure anyway?
I mean, we can talk about howit's not meeting a desired
objective and that sort of thing, but what I found interesting
is I was researching for thispodcast.
So many of the definitions thatI found defined failure not for
what it was, but instead forwhat it wasn't, in this case,
(01:59):
success.
Over and over and over, I foundthe definition of failure
stated as a lack of success, andoh boy, that is loaded for me,
partially because of how I'mcoming to feel about lack and
scarcity and partially because Ithink it just deepens the
difficulties that we have withthe idea of failure.
(02:20):
Let me just start out by sayingthat the fear of failure is very
real, it is very normal and itis very primal.
Failure touches some of ourdeepest core level fears.
Failure in certain contextsthreatens not only our safety
but our very existence.
There are times when failurecan actually mean death, and
(02:43):
that is what our brains aretrying to protect us from.
However, the vast majority ofour experiences today, perhaps
differently from ages past arenot life and death type
situations, but our brains,which love to be busy and
engaged in meaningful work,continue to scan for danger, and
failure tends to hit a lot ofthose marks.
(03:05):
It can have a social impact, itcan result in punishment, it
can be used as a measurement ofpersonal value and it can be the
cause of many difficult andemotional experiences.
All of these things can feelvery dangerous, making failure
itself feel dangerous.
And this may all be happeningon a subconscious level.
(03:25):
We may not even know that weexperience failure as dangerous.
But what is it really, and howcan we adjust the way that we
see an experience failure sothat it can actually be useful?
First, it's important to knowthat the definition of failure
in our society is actuallypretty variable.
I see this all the time as ateacher, I see it as a parent, I
see it as a business owner.
(03:45):
What might feel like a failurefor one person might be a
rousing success for another.
I had plenty of students whofelt like anything that wasn't
an A was a failure, and I haveothers who squeaked out the 60%
to pass, that celebrated like itwas Christmas, with so many
variations of what the wordfailure can mean.
(04:05):
I think it might be helpful toput it into a context that is
relatively stable, so that wecan have some kind of structure
to build a conversation around.
So we'll put it in journeyterms.
In journey terms, failure comesas a natural and crucial part of
the trials and temptationsphase.
Now, as a quick reminder, thetrials and temptations phase is
(04:27):
where we are working on comingto know the unknown.
We have stepped across thethreshold from the world that we
knew and are faced withexperiences and requirements,
but we don't know how to handleit.
And yet is the operative word.
This phase is the space wherewe learn, we grow, we develop
skills and abilities, and itrequires us to try things that
we've never done before, tolearn things that are foreign,
(04:50):
to act in ways that areunfamiliar.
A natural part of this processis that we have to try all these
things.
We have to shoot thatbasketball, or try that math
problem, or stifle a cuttingremark that we would normally
allow to slip.
But since we don't actuallyknow how to do those things, we
have to go through the processthat allows us to understand
(05:11):
what success looks like for thatthing.
Take shooting a basketball, forexample the first time someone
shoots a ball at a hoop, they'reprobably not going to make it
because they don't know how.
If the definition of success inthis case is to get the ball
into the basket, we wouldconsider that a failure.
But in terms of the journey,what we consider a failure is
(05:33):
really just one thing it'sfeedback.
You tried something and itdidn't work.
In the process of learning, itmeans that you tried it in a way
that wasn't what the taskrequired.
Going back to the basketball,maybe there wasn't enough force
on the ball, or maybe the anglecoming off the fingers was off,
(05:55):
maybe there was too much powerand an overshot.
All of that is information, andinformation is neutral.
Let me say that againInformation is neutral.
There's no judgment, just data.
When I did it this way, this ishow it turned out.
If I don't like how it turnedout, what could I change in
(06:18):
order to create a differentoutcome?
Failure is feedback in a journey, but unfortunately, because of
our primal fears and the primalfears of others, we start to see
failure as all sorts of thingsthat it just isn't.
Failure isn't a judgment of youas a person.
(06:38):
Failure isn't a measurement ofyour worth.
Failure isn't an indication ofwhat will happen in the future.
It is feedback.
The power comes in decidingwhat do we do with the
information that that feedbackgives us.
Do we take that information andlet it teach us?
(06:59):
Do we look at it and understandthat it is showing us ways that
we can adjust or do thingsdifferently if we want a
different outcome?
Do we see it as an attempt toget closer to understanding and
developing the talents and theskills that we're going to need,
or do we take it as aconfirmation of our own fears of
(07:20):
who we are or aren't as aperson?
Do we use it as a weapon tokeep ourselves small and
supposedly safe?
Do we use it as an excuse toquit the journey early because,
deep down, we don't want to dothe work Again, the information
is neutral.
This action done in this way ledto this result.
(07:43):
But if we're having a reactionthat's other than neutral, that
gives us the opportunity to looka little deeper and see what's
underneath.
These feelings that come uparound failure are signals that
there's something ready,something ready to come up,
something ready to feel, readyto let go.
If our reaction to failurebrings up fears and emotions,
(08:06):
the really powerful work isbeginning.
This is the actual work we needto do.
This is where healing actuallyhappens, and it's something that
I don't think we talk aboutenough these thoughts, these
beliefs that we have run deep,and until we bring them to the
surface, healing is impossible.
I'm not going to go too deeplyinto that, because in the next
(08:28):
podcast I'll be talking abouthealing, but just keep that in
mind these signals that come upare opportunities to heal.
But let's come back to thisidea of feedback, because it's
also important that weunderstand that what we
currently perceive as failuremay actually end up being a gift
that job that we didn't get, orthat relationship that didn't
(08:51):
work out, or that game that wedidn't win.
It may feel like a failure,like we've lost something that
should have been ours, and itcan hurt, but I would venture to
say that all of us can lookback on our lives.
It's something that weperceived as a failure at the
time, but now, from our currentvantage point, we see the gifts
(09:14):
that we were given through thatfailure.
Our son loves basketball.
He loves it, and if you are aparent, you know that it is such
a joy to see your kids find thethings that they are passionate
about, and he is passionateabout basketball.
This was a recently discoveredlove for him.
(09:35):
He played around with it alittle bit when he was younger.
He did junior jazz and thatsort of thing, but wasn't it
really driven to practice morethan just the once or twice a
week that the teams got together?
Something happened, though,that flipped a switch for him.
I don't know what it was, buthe started wanting to play so
much that he was willing to wakeup early and make other
sacrifices so that he could geta ball in his hands and practice
(09:57):
.
He tried out for the ninth gradeteam at his school, and he
didn't make it, but instead ofletting that get him down, he
actually went to the coaches onhis own and asked how he could
improve so that he could beworking on it now in preparation
for the tryouts that wouldhappen at the high school the
next year.
The coaches were actuallyreally impressed with his asking
, and when another kid decidednot to join the team, a space
(10:21):
was opened up and he was able tobe on the team.
He took the feedback and heused it, and it reminds me of
the story of Michael Jordan, who, by the way is the goat when it
comes to basketball, no matterwhat other people may say.
Some of you may have heard thisstory, but Jordan tried out for
the varsity team at his highschool when he was just a
sophomore.
(10:41):
Clearly he liked basketball, hewas good enough to be trying
out at that level, but at thetime he was 5'10 and he
struggled, according to thecoach, with shooting and defense
.
He didn't make the varsity teamand instead they put him on the
JV team so that he would havetime to develop those skills.
And it can be hard for some ofus to believe that Michael
(11:01):
Jordan, this mind-blowingly goodbasketball player, wouldn't
just make every team that heever tried out for.
I mean, he's Michael Jordan,but what we forget is that there
was a journey that he had totake in order to become the
Michael Jordan that we came toknow.
Not making the team was areality check and, as his coach
(11:22):
would later say and I'm quotinghim here there was no doubt that
Mike Jordan could handle theball, but his shooting was
merely good and his defensemediocre.
Mike Jordan was 7 or 8 inchesshorter than Michael Jordan
would be only 5'10 at age 15.
And at least one of theassistant coaches had never even
heard of him before that day.
If Jordan distinguished himselfat the tryout, the coach said
(11:45):
it was through his supremeeffort.
In other words, looking at thatquote, michael Jordan wasn't a
great player.
Yet upon finding out that hedidn't make the team, he told
his mom and they cried together.
But then she told him whatjourneys are telling us in these
moments that if you really wantthis, you're going to need to
(12:06):
work harder.
You're going to need to changewhat you're doing.
You're going to need to changehow you're doing it.
The feedback was that hisshooting wasn't great.
His defense was mediocre.
Those are the things he wouldneed to work on, and he took up
that challenge.
Not making the team, somethingthat could easily be considered
a failure, was exactly what heneeded to drive himself to work
(12:30):
hard enough to become theMichael Jordan that we would all
come to know later on.
If he had somehow made the team, his drive to improve, to work
hard, to put in the effort,might just as easily have been
absent.
He may never have become theplayer that he was capable of
becoming.
(12:50):
We actually see this patternplay out in other people's
journeys as well, in both bigways and small.
The current dilemma speaks ofbeing exiled from his beloved
Tibet.
In this way, and as hard as itmay be to believe, he is able to
see the gifts in what proved tobe an intensely difficult
experience.
I'm going to quote him here,and this is somewhat of a long
(13:12):
quote, but it beautifullydemonstrates the point, so bear
with me.
He says At that time, speakingof the events that occurred in
1959, in spite of our earnestefforts to coexist, the Chinese
authorities did not,unfortunately, respond
positively.
The very survival of the Tibetanidentity was at risk.
So it was decided that, in theinterests of our land and our
(13:34):
people, that I should leaveLhasa.
Initially I had some fear andhesitation about doing this, but
since the Tibetan people hadplaced their hope and trust in
me, I knew where myresponsibility lay.
In the same way, when I washardly 16, and even though I was
ill-prepared, I had to take upthe political leadership of
Tibet.
Sometimes I say that at 16, Ihad lost my personal freedom,
(13:59):
and at 24, my country's freedomwas lost.
Subsequently, I became arefugee.
The tragedy of Tibet has yet tobe resolved, but my becoming a
refugee in India brought with itmany hidden blessings For one.
The moment I was able to crossover from Tibet to India on
March 31, 1959, I realized thevalue of freedom.
(14:19):
Since then, I have been thelongest staying guest of the
Indian government, enjoyingevery possible liberty.
In addition, india has providedme and those other Tibetans who
managed to escape the freedomto preserve and promote Tibetan
identity and our culture ofpeace and compassion, and to
share them with the entire world.
(14:39):
Most important I have enjoyedin exile the freedom to pursue
my spiritual development.
Even as I have tried to takecare of Tibetan affairs For many
decades now, I have had theopportunity to engage in
dialogue with leaders ofdifferent religious traditions,
scholars and scientists.
These new friends have enabledme to understand more clearly
(15:02):
the state of humanity and theways in which I can contribute
to a better world.
So for him to hear him speak ofit.
Being exiled from Tibet gavehim the opportunity to learn and
grow in ways that would nothave been possible had they been
allowed to stay in Tibet.
Again, it's not that thejourney caused the Chinese
government to create discord,force them out.
(15:24):
Instead, the journey was ableto take the situation and create
opportunities for learning andgrowth, opportunities that he
can look back on and see asgifts of that experience.
Nelson Mandela similarly speaksof his many years in prison in a
way that reflects the sametruth.
I'm drawing here from thewriting of John Sadoski.
(15:45):
He said when sentenced to lifeimprisonment in 1964, the future
president entered as a fiery,hot-tempered, militant freedom
fighter, considered a dangerousterrorist by the white ruling
party.
The man who walked free nearly26 years later was entirely
different, measured and moderate, possessing the thoughtful calm
(16:06):
and a masterful negotiatingskills of a seasoned statesman.
For most of his life, mandelahad indeed promoted brute force
as the only way to confrontwhite dominance in his country
and was unwilling to renounceviolence.
And yet, upon leaving prison,he was a completely different
person.
The tempestuous radical of the1960s slowly learned to be
(16:29):
reflective, and those years ofreflection changed his life.
By his own account, nelsonMandela considered his time in
prison as the turning point ofhis life, the event that allowed
him to grow into the leader hewas to become.
In his jail cell, he took thetime to think in ways he had not
before about his past, abouthis desire to become a better
(16:50):
person and about the need toeschew anger and vengefulness.
He was able to achieve, in hiswords, the most difficult task
in life changing yourself.
When I read that quote, itreally struck me.
Mandela described this changeto Oprah Winfrey in 2001.
He said Before I went to jail,I was active in politics as a
member of South Africa's leadingorganization, and I was
(17:13):
generally busy from 7am untilmidnight.
I never had time to sit andthink.
As I worked, physical andmental fatigue set in and I was
unable to operate to the maximumof my intellectual ability.
But in a single cell in prison,I had time to think.
I had a clear view of my pastand present, and I found that my
(17:34):
past left much to be desired,both in regard to my relations
with other humans and indeveloping personal worth.
So with these examples, and anyof your own that you may have
thought of, perhaps we can giveourselves a little more grace
when it comes to failure.
Inside of what can bring up alot of emotion, a lot of hurt
(17:59):
and a lot of difficulty can bethe pathway toward actually
becoming the better version ofourselves that we're capable of.
Sometimes, the brutal honestyof this feedback the feedback
that we're just not there yet isexactly what we need to hear in
order to break free of our ownmisconceptions and
self-deceptions, to not becomecomplacent and think that we're
(18:23):
everything we could be justbecause we made the team or got
the job or whatever the task was.
Failure is feedback.
What we do with that feedbackis where we allow or don't allow
the journey to work in ourlives, and in the end, that is
what really matters, becauselife is a journey and it's time
(18:45):
we start living like it.
I'll see you next time.
Hey everyone and welcome to this week's podcast
episode.
Thank you for being here andfor being a part of the creation
of this through your questionsand sharing your journeys.
It means a great deal to me.
It reminds me, when things gethard and I don't know what I'm
doing and I have no idea if thisis making a difference at all,
and when I feel like a failure,that the journey is what matters
(00:31):
.
In fact, I want to talk aboutfailure today because coming to
see it and change myrelationship with it has been
one of my own personal journeysthat has been, honestly, pretty
intense, and so, just in casefailure and the fear of failure
has been a difficult part ofyour journey, I hope to share at
(00:51):
least a couple of things todaythat will be helpful, especially
as we put failure in thecontext of journeys, which is
why we're here.
So, to start off, when we talkabout failure, there are a lot
of emotions that come up.
In fact, if you take a momentright now to note for yourself
what comes up for you when youthink of failure, what feelings,
(01:14):
what words, what experiences,chances are good that there is a
lot of discomfort there, a lotof heartache, maybe even a lot
of shame.
There could be anger or anxietyor sadness and maybe more.
Why is that?
How is this one thing able tocreate such a range of difficult
(01:37):
emotions?
And what is failure anyway?
I mean, we can talk about howit's not meeting a desired
objective and that sort of thing, but what I found interesting
is I was researching for thispodcast.
So many of the definitions thatI found defined failure not for
what it was, but instead forwhat it wasn't, in this case,
(01:59):
success.
Over and over and over, I foundthe definition of failure
stated as a lack of success, andoh boy, that is loaded for me,
partially because of how I'mcoming to feel about lack and
scarcity and partially because Ithink it just deepens the
difficulties that we have withthe idea of failure.
(02:20):
Let me just start out by sayingthat the fear of failure is very
real, it is very normal and itis very primal.
Failure touches some of ourdeepest core level fears.
Failure in certain contextsthreatens not only our safety
but our very existence.
There are times when failurecan actually mean death, and
(02:43):
that is what our brains aretrying to protect us from.
However, the vast majority ofour experiences today, perhaps
differently from ages past arenot life and death type
situations, but our brains,which love to be busy and
engaged in meaningful work,continue to scan for danger, and
failure tends to hit a lot ofthose marks.
(03:05):
It can have a social impact, itcan result in punishment, it
can be used as a measurement ofpersonal value and it can be the
cause of many difficult andemotional experiences.
All of these things can feelvery dangerous, making failure
itself feel dangerous.
And this may all be happeningon a subconscious level.
(03:25):
We may not even know that weexperience failure as dangerous.
But what is it really, and howcan we adjust the way that we
see an experience failure sothat it can actually be useful?
First, it's important to knowthat the definition of failure
in our society is actuallypretty variable.
I see this all the time as ateacher, I see it as a parent, I
see it as a business owner.
(03:45):
What might feel like a failurefor one person might be a
rousing success for another.
I had plenty of students whofelt like anything that wasn't
an A was a failure, and I haveothers who squeaked out the 60%
to pass, that celebrated like itwas Christmas, with so many
variations of what the wordfailure can mean.
(04:05):
I think it might be helpful toput it into a context that is
relatively stable, so that wecan have some kind of structure
to build a conversation around.
So we'll put it in journeyterms.
In journey terms, failure comesas a natural and crucial part of
the trials and temptationsphase.
Now, as a quick reminder, thetrials and temptations phase is
(04:27):
where we are working on comingto know the unknown.
We have stepped across thethreshold from the world that we
knew and are faced withexperiences and requirements,
but we don't know how to handleit.
And yet is the operative word.
This phase is the space wherewe learn, we grow, we develop
skills and abilities, and itrequires us to try things that
we've never done before, tolearn things that are foreign,
(04:50):
to act in ways that areunfamiliar.
A natural part of this processis that we have to try all these
things.
We have to shoot thatbasketball, or try that math
problem, or stifle a cuttingremark that we would normally
allow to slip.
But since we don't actuallyknow how to do those things, we
have to go through the processthat allows us to understand
(05:11):
what success looks like for thatthing.
Take shooting a basketball, forexample the first time someone
shoots a ball at a hoop, they'reprobably not going to make it
because they don't know how.
If the definition of success inthis case is to get the ball
into the basket, we wouldconsider that a failure.
But in terms of the journey,what we consider a failure is
(05:33):
really just one thing it'sfeedback.
You tried something and itdidn't work.
In the process of learning, itmeans that you tried it in a way
that wasn't what the taskrequired.
Going back to the basketball,maybe there wasn't enough force
on the ball, or maybe the anglecoming off the fingers was off,
(05:55):
maybe there was too much powerand an overshot.
All of that is information, andinformation is neutral.
Let me say that againInformation is neutral.
There's no judgment, just data.
When I did it this way, this ishow it turned out.
If I don't like how it turnedout, what could I change in
(06:18):
order to create a differentoutcome?
Failure is feedback in a journey, but unfortunately, because of
our primal fears and the primalfears of others, we start to see
failure as all sorts of thingsthat it just isn't.
Failure isn't a judgment of youas a person.
(06:38):
Failure isn't a measurement ofyour worth.
Failure isn't an indication ofwhat will happen in the future.
It is feedback.
The power comes in decidingwhat do we do with the
information that that feedbackgives us.
Do we take that information andlet it teach us?
(06:59):
Do we look at it and understandthat it is showing us ways that
we can adjust or do thingsdifferently if we want a
different outcome?
Do we see it as an attempt toget closer to understanding and
developing the talents and theskills that we're going to need,
or do we take it as aconfirmation of our own fears of
(07:20):
who we are or aren't as aperson?
Do we use it as a weapon tokeep ourselves small and
supposedly safe?
Do we use it as an excuse toquit the journey early because,
deep down, we don't want to dothe work Again, the information
is neutral.
This action done in this way ledto this result.
(07:43):
But if we're having a reactionthat's other than neutral, that
gives us the opportunity to looka little deeper and see what's
underneath.
These feelings that come uparound failure are signals that
there's something ready,something ready to come up,
something ready to feel, readyto let go.
If our reaction to failurebrings up fears and emotions,
(08:06):
the really powerful work isbeginning.
This is the actual work we needto do.
This is where healing actuallyhappens, and it's something that
I don't think we talk aboutenough these thoughts, these
beliefs that we have run deep,and until we bring them to the
surface, healing is impossible.
I'm not going to go too deeplyinto that, because in the next
(08:28):
podcast I'll be talking abouthealing, but just keep that in
mind these signals that come upare opportunities to heal.
But let's come back to thisidea of feedback, because it's
also important that weunderstand that what we
currently perceive as failuremay actually end up being a gift
that job that we didn't get, orthat relationship that didn't
(08:51):
work out, or that game that wedidn't win.
It may feel like a failure,like we've lost something that
should have been ours, and itcan hurt, but I would venture to
say that all of us can lookback on our lives.
It's something that weperceived as a failure at the
time, but now, from our currentvantage point, we see the gifts
(09:14):
that we were given through thatfailure.
Our son loves basketball.
He loves it, and if you are aparent, you know that it is such
a joy to see your kids find thethings that they are passionate
about, and he is passionateabout basketball.
This was a recently discoveredlove for him.
(09:35):
He played around with it alittle bit when he was younger.
He did junior jazz and thatsort of thing, but wasn't it
really driven to practice morethan just the once or twice a
week that the teams got together?
Something happened, though,that flipped a switch for him.
I don't know what it was, buthe started wanting to play so
much that he was willing to wakeup early and make other
sacrifices so that he could geta ball in his hands and practice
(09:57):
.
He tried out for the ninth gradeteam at his school, and he
didn't make it, but instead ofletting that get him down, he
actually went to the coaches onhis own and asked how he could
improve so that he could beworking on it now in preparation
for the tryouts that wouldhappen at the high school the
next year.
The coaches were actuallyreally impressed with his asking
, and when another kid decidednot to join the team, a space
(10:21):
was opened up and he was able tobe on the team.
He took the feedback and heused it, and it reminds me of
the story of Michael Jordan, who, by the way is the goat when it
comes to basketball, no matterwhat other people may say.
Some of you may have heard thisstory, but Jordan tried out for
the varsity team at his highschool when he was just a
sophomore.
(10:41):
Clearly he liked basketball, hewas good enough to be trying
out at that level, but at thetime he was 5'10 and he
struggled, according to thecoach, with shooting and defense
.
He didn't make the varsity teamand instead they put him on the
JV team so that he would havetime to develop those skills.
And it can be hard for some ofus to believe that Michael
(11:01):
Jordan, this mind-blowingly goodbasketball player, wouldn't
just make every team that heever tried out for.
I mean, he's Michael Jordan,but what we forget is that there
was a journey that he had totake in order to become the
Michael Jordan that we came toknow.
Not making the team was areality check and, as his coach
(11:22):
would later say and I'm quotinghim here there was no doubt that
Mike Jordan could handle theball, but his shooting was
merely good and his defensemediocre.
Mike Jordan was 7 or 8 inchesshorter than Michael Jordan
would be only 5'10 at age 15.
And at least one of theassistant coaches had never even
heard of him before that day.
If Jordan distinguished himselfat the tryout, the coach said
(11:45):
it was through his supremeeffort.
In other words, looking at thatquote, michael Jordan wasn't a
great player.
Yet upon finding out that hedidn't make the team, he told
his mom and they cried together.
But then she told him whatjourneys are telling us in these
moments that if you really wantthis, you're going to need to
(12:06):
work harder.
You're going to need to changewhat you're doing.
You're going to need to changehow you're doing it.
The feedback was that hisshooting wasn't great.
His defense was mediocre.
Those are the things he wouldneed to work on, and he took up
that challenge.
Not making the team, somethingthat could easily be considered
a failure, was exactly what heneeded to drive himself to work
(12:30):
hard enough to become theMichael Jordan that we would all
come to know later on.
If he had somehow made the team, his drive to improve, to work
hard, to put in the effort,might just as easily have been
absent.
He may never have become theplayer that he was capable of
becoming.
(12:50):
We actually see this patternplay out in other people's
journeys as well, in both bigways and small.
The current dilemma speaks ofbeing exiled from his beloved
Tibet.
In this way, and as hard as itmay be to believe, he is able to
see the gifts in what proved tobe an intensely difficult
experience.
I'm going to quote him here,and this is somewhat of a long
(13:12):
quote, but it beautifullydemonstrates the point, so bear
with me.
He says At that time, speakingof the events that occurred in
1959, in spite of our earnestefforts to coexist, the Chinese
authorities did not,unfortunately, respond
positively.
The very survival of the Tibetanidentity was at risk.
So it was decided that, in theinterests of our land and our
(13:34):
people, that I should leaveLhasa.
Initially I had some fear andhesitation about doing this, but
since the Tibetan people hadplaced their hope and trust in
me, I knew where myresponsibility lay.
In the same way, when I washardly 16, and even though I was
ill-prepared, I had to take upthe political leadership of
Tibet.
Sometimes I say that at 16, Ihad lost my personal freedom,
(13:59):
and at 24, my country's freedomwas lost.
Subsequently, I became arefugee.
The tragedy of Tibet has yet tobe resolved, but my becoming a
refugee in India brought with itmany hidden blessings For one.
The moment I was able to crossover from Tibet to India on
March 31, 1959, I realized thevalue of freedom.
(14:19):
Since then, I have been thelongest staying guest of the
Indian government, enjoyingevery possible liberty.
In addition, india has providedme and those other Tibetans who
managed to escape the freedomto preserve and promote Tibetan
identity and our culture ofpeace and compassion, and to
share them with the entire world.
(14:39):
Most important I have enjoyedin exile the freedom to pursue
my spiritual development.
Even as I have tried to takecare of Tibetan affairs For many
decades now, I have had theopportunity to engage in
dialogue with leaders ofdifferent religious traditions,
scholars and scientists.
These new friends have enabledme to understand more clearly
(15:02):
the state of humanity and theways in which I can contribute
to a better world.
So for him to hear him speak ofit.
Being exiled from Tibet gavehim the opportunity to learn and
grow in ways that would nothave been possible had they been
allowed to stay in Tibet.
Again, it's not that thejourney caused the Chinese
government to create discord,force them out.
(15:24):
Instead, the journey was ableto take the situation and create
opportunities for learning andgrowth, opportunities that he
can look back on and see asgifts of that experience.
Nelson Mandela similarly speaksof his many years in prison in a
way that reflects the sametruth.
I'm drawing here from thewriting of John Sadoski.
(15:45):
He said when sentenced to lifeimprisonment in 1964, the future
president entered as a fiery,hot-tempered, militant freedom
fighter, considered a dangerousterrorist by the white ruling
party.
The man who walked free nearly26 years later was entirely
different, measured and moderate, possessing the thoughtful calm
(16:06):
and a masterful negotiatingskills of a seasoned statesman.
For most of his life, mandelahad indeed promoted brute force
as the only way to confrontwhite dominance in his country
and was unwilling to renounceviolence.
And yet, upon leaving prison,he was a completely different
person.
The tempestuous radical of the1960s slowly learned to be
(16:29):
reflective, and those years ofreflection changed his life.
By his own account, nelsonMandela considered his time in
prison as the turning point ofhis life, the event that allowed
him to grow into the leader hewas to become.
In his jail cell, he took thetime to think in ways he had not
before about his past, abouthis desire to become a better
(16:50):
person and about the need toeschew anger and vengefulness.
He was able to achieve, in hiswords, the most difficult task
in life changing yourself.
When I read that quote, itreally struck me.
Mandela described this changeto Oprah Winfrey in 2001.
He said Before I went to jail,I was active in politics as a
member of South Africa's leadingorganization, and I was
(17:13):
generally busy from 7am untilmidnight.
I never had time to sit andthink.
As I worked, physical andmental fatigue set in and I was
unable to operate to the maximumof my intellectual ability.
But in a single cell in prison,I had time to think.
I had a clear view of my pastand present, and I found that my
(17:34):
past left much to be desired,both in regard to my relations
with other humans and indeveloping personal worth.
So with these examples, and anyof your own that you may have
thought of, perhaps we can giveourselves a little more grace
when it comes to failure.
Inside of what can bring up alot of emotion, a lot of hurt
(17:59):
and a lot of difficulty can bethe pathway toward actually
becoming the better version ofourselves that we're capable of.
Sometimes, the brutal honestyof this feedback the feedback
that we're just not there yet isexactly what we need to hear in
order to break free of our ownmisconceptions and
self-deceptions, to not becomecomplacent and think that we're
(18:23):
everything we could be justbecause we made the team or got
the job or whatever the task was.
Failure is feedback.
What we do with that feedbackis where we allow or don't allow
the journey to work in ourlives, and in the end, that is
what really matters, becauselife is a journey and it's time
(18:45):
we start living like it.
I'll see you next time.
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