Why Failures Are Essential Catalysts for Human Success with Marc Lainhart

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Join Mark Lainhart, the Intuitive Prospector, on a journey into
creativity and transformation. Each episode, Mark and his guests explore
the intersection of science and spirituality to uncover ways to
live a more inspired life. Together, we'll navigate both the
seen and unseen realms to spark joy and personal growth.

(00:36):
This is a community where you are empowered to discover
the diamond within. Mark is an award winning psychic medium,
decorated veteran, and teacher based in Seattle. Using his intuitive gifts,
he guides the curious on profound soul adventures. Now Here
is your host, Mark Lainhart, the Intuitive Prospector.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
All right, Hello prospecting friends, and welcome to Inspired Living.
I am your host, Mark Lainhart, the Intuitive Prospector, and
I am so thrilled to have you back in, tuning
in as I guide you as a fellow prospector or
what I like to call soul adventures filled with creativity, curiosity, education, encouragement, inspiration, mindfulness, motivation, manifestations, vision,

(01:26):
and a whole lot of spiritual awesomeness. Here on this
episode of Inspired Living, We're going to present content, stories,
and interviews that will offer you a chance to ignite
your dreams and your passions. Explore your curiosities, thoughts, and ideas,
while we embrace the many wonders of both the extraordinary,
the ordinary, the paranormal, and the normal along with what

(01:50):
it first appears to be science fiction, but we know
eventually over time it becomes science facts. And together, through
this show, we will uncover the unique diamonds within each
of us while discovering and revealing the many wonderful hidden
gems waiting to shine in our lives, our journey, and
the human experience. Here on Inspired Living, we are all

(02:11):
about building a supportive community where we celebrate every victory
big and small, and each episode features incredible guests who
have faced challenges, have had lost, failure, defeats, but have
persevered and pursued their passions, their goals, their motivations and
making it a positive impact in their respected fields and

(02:34):
making our world a much better place. And we need
that in our world right now, don't re You can
expect from these episodes discussions, engaging discussions, perspectives, thought provoking questions,
and of course, actionable steps to transform and manifest inspiration
into your own reality. I wanted to also say, you know,

(02:56):
as first and foremost a huge thank you to all
of our Inspired listeners around the globe. Your support through listening, downloading, subscribing,
leaving reviews has now made Inspired Living podcast a top
choice for inspiration, for introspection, and for spirituality. And we
are truly humbled and grateful for each and every one

(03:18):
of you, So thank you. If you have not yet subscribed, liked,
or followed us, there's always time to do so on
this live episode or over on our social media platforms.
You can connect us with us through Inspired Living on Facebook.
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(03:41):
for Inspired for us. That's the number for us. You
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So I like to say you were both the inspiration
and the inspired. So let's embrace this journey together, inspire others,

(04:01):
and let's make every moment count before we expire. And
I hope you enjoy this episode of Inspired Living. So
today I'm going to be your special guest. I'm going
to be the host and guest, just celebrating. You may notice,
if you're watching this through live through old times television,
you may notice a little flying saucer off to my

(04:25):
right of camera. That's actually an a fine saucer. I
know we're talking all about disclosure and everything that's coming
into manifestation. Are we alone in the universe? A lot
of big discussions taking place. What I've been saying, what
I've been podcasted about, wrote about, and discussed through many
shows and lectures about this drip, drip drip, that we're

(04:47):
learning that we're not alone in the universe. So I
know it kind of looks like a spaceship, but it's
actually my birthday present. It's a handpan. It's a very
beautiful drum that I've been wanting for a long time,
and so yesterday was my birthday, so I got that
as a birthday present. And it's the month of April.
So it's all about the diamonds, right, That's my birthstone,
is the diamond. So we're going to explore the diamond within,
and we're going to also explore the many hidden gems

(05:11):
that are all around us, and today I want to
talk to you about why failures are essential catalysts for
human success. I did a deep dive, really and did
a lot of exploring and a lot of researching, and
so I'm going to be putting together in this episode
the transformative role that failures bring to us. You know,

(05:34):
there's historical evidence, there's psychological frameworks that demonstrate fundamental truths
often obscured by what I say are cultural narratives of success.
And one of the things if you work with me,
you follow my journey, follow my works, my book, this podcast,
You'll know that I'm always teaching my students and my
clients and anybody else that's interested in listening that failure

(05:58):
is actually a good thing in the human journey. And
I like to, you know, with the background several years
in medicine, I always like to put things into acronyms
because it's a great way to remember stuff if you
put into acronyms. And so one of the things that
I equate failure is first attempt in learning, and so
we should be failing every day, and we should be
failing often. You know, society brands this as failure is oh,

(06:22):
you're a failure. I can't many I can't tell you
how many times I heard that growing up from friends,
from family. You're just not smart enough, you're dumb, You're
a failure, and we start to marinate in that bs
And for me, with the transformations that I've gone through,
I've learned that failure is actually a catalyst. And that's
what we're going to talk about why failures are essential

(06:43):
catalysts for human success. Now you'll have to ask yourself
what is success for you? Every definition of success is
going to be different based on every human you know,
subjective perspective on what they think success is.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Right.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
For me, success is being alive today in the present moment.
Some may equated to how many cars and houses, and
how much money you make, what kind of career you have,
how popular, how much how many followers you have on
social media. Right for me, it's about being present and
being alive in this day, right now, being with you
here on this episode. One of the things that I've

(07:16):
learned over doing many seasons of inspired living is on
a daily average around the globe, there's over two hundred
and fifty thousand people, two hundred and fifty thousand souls
that didn't wake up today, didn't open their eyes, passed
away for many several reasons, wrong place, wrong time, old age, sickness,
car crash, airplane crash, drowning, murder, war right, And that's

(07:39):
always kind of stuck with me from past episodes. And
I'm going to be bringing some of the past episodes
that we've talked about, including neuroplasticity, the brain and how
powerful the brain really is Einstein equated and I'm paraphrasing here,
but he always talked about this three and a half
pound object in our head. The brain is one of
the most complex mysteries in the universe. And I've always like, well,

(08:00):
why is that right? But you know, my success is
being able to what I say carpdium, to seize the
day and to be present in the present moment, because
all of your power resides right here in this present moment.
If you're listening to this episode, if you're watching the show,
it's the present moment of what you're doing right now.
There is no guarantee for the future. And then you
can't go back and change the past unless you have

(08:21):
a time machine. And if you do, I'd love to
have you on be a guest on Inspired Levingar. You
can talk about how you built the time machine and
where you went back to, but for me, it's about
being present in the present moment. And there's that old
adage yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery. Today is a gift.
That's why we call the present moment. And I learned
that from just previous episodes that you know, on average,

(08:44):
every single day, about two hundred fifty thousand people do
not wake back up to the human experience. And so
for me, that's what success is. But for everybody listening
watching the show, success is going to be different for you.
But through that you should have many failures. You should
have first attempts in learning. The other acronym that I

(09:07):
love to use in my analogies is life. Learn it
from experience. Now, many times we show up and or
we don't show up to life, and we come from
a place of fear. Another acronym I love to use
fear false evidence, appearing real. And I like anything that's
fear based. If I find it to be fear based,
whether it's through religion, through media, through social circles, through family,

(09:31):
through friends, if it's fear based, first thing I'm going
to do, is like, well, is that false evidence appearing real?
We call that cognitive dissonance, gas lighting, misinformation. And then
I will shift my energy, I will shift my perspective
and my thoughts to be face everything and rise. So
there's two acronyms for fear, false evidence appearing real, face

(09:52):
everything in rise. I like to face everything in rise
because I'm a big I'm a big you know the
glass is half full kind of guy. I'm all about
if you don't risk, if there's no biscuit.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
So we're going to talk today about a few people
that have impacted your life directly, whether you know it
or not, that have been multiple failures in their journey,
but through perseverance, through determination, they kept.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Exploring, they kept prospecting, they kept moving forward. And you know, again,
it's usually something that's obscured by what we call cultural
narratives of success and failure is not an obstacle to
human achievement. But I found that it's rather an indispensable
mechanism through which meaningful success, resilience, wisdom, authenticity, and transformation.

(10:37):
My own journey as well have occurred. Nearly ninety percent
of successful people faced repeated failure before achieving breakthrough success.
And that's according to several long term performance studies. Yet
probably the most contemporary discourse treats failure as an adoration
rather than an essential process. And through you know, examinations

(11:01):
of neuroscience, famous case studies, psychological theory, emerging models of learning, architecture.
This research that I did past episodes have inspired living,
you know, it argues that failures function not as set backs,

(11:22):
but as directional information systems that I would say recalibrate
human capabilities and they illuminate I know they did for me.
They illuminate hidden vulnerabilities, and they forge these neural pathways.
This neural pathway that we're talking about psychological flexibility. You know,

(11:44):
it's like a muscle, right, It's like working out. If
you don't use it, you lose it kind of thing.
But just also genuine competence required for sustainable success. And
again whatever your definition of sustainable sustainable stuff tongue twister,
but one of the first things that really kind of
you know, in my journey of doing this, you know,

(12:06):
my journey of death and dying spirituality medicine, was my
older brother had succumbed to brain cancer. Known as cleoblastiatoma,
and I for through his journey before he went over
to the other side and cross that rainbow bridge. I
had an opportunity to learn and sit down with actual

(12:27):
brain surgeons that had actually had done two brain surgeries
on him before he passed, and he did a brain mapping.
He was one of the first here in Seattle. This
is back, you know, almost twenty some years ago. He
was one of the first to have one of the
first patients to offer to have a brain mapping scan
his brain. And that's really where I really started to
become fascinated and curious. And I'm all things about curiosity. Right,
just because we don't see it doesn't mean it's not

(12:49):
around us. You know things it could be, you know, ets,
extra eventual beings, bigfoot, lockedness, monster, ghosts, the afterlife, you know,
everything that's that's curiosity. And this is definitely one topic.
One modality that really kind of peauked my interest was
the human brain and how the brain works, and how
the brain can actually rewire itself, which we call neuroplastic neuroplasticity,

(13:12):
and starting to do a lot of research and including
today's episode, you can go back and listen to past
episodes of Inspired Living Again. You can get us wherever
you listen to your favorite podcast. We've had doctors from Stanford,
from Columbia a few other discussing brain knowledge and mental
health and how brains work, and so you know today,

(13:35):
that's why I think it's essential for failures to be
a catalyst to human progression, human transformation. And again, whatever
your definition of success is, for me, it's about being
healthy and living the best life that we can. So
the neuroscience of failure and how these errors drive what
we call brain plasticity and learning, and the biological foundation

(13:59):
for understand why failure drive success lies in a field
that has revolutionized neuroscience over the past two decades, and
it's literally called neuroplasticity, and the concept represents perhaps one
of the most scientific, important, and yet frequently misunderstood truth
about human potential. And for centuries, both medical, scientific and

(14:20):
i even say a few religious establishments operated under a
false assumption, a false narrative that the adult brain was
essentially fixed, it was immutable structure, that by adulthood, neural
architecture was set and could not have meaningful change. Science

(14:42):
is telling us otherwise, studies data brain mapping. In fact,
a lot of the science that I've been following, in
a lot of the studies that I follow peer medical reviews,
they're actually especially for men. They're showing that we don't
actually start to reach maturity and the brain level until
our thirties. You don't reach full maturity until you're in
your sixties. But when I was growing up as well,

(15:03):
if you're over the age of twenty three, biologically you're
on the downslope of you know, procreation, but it has
nothing really to do with the brain. And this dogma
you know of you can't change your brain an adult,
has been proven to be wrong, and it's I found
that this dogma has proved to be i don't know,
profoundly damaging, as it discourages us as humans, as prospectors,

(15:27):
as people from attempting significant change and prevented individuals from
understanding their own capacity of transformation. Neuroplasticity, by contrast, reveals
that the brain is continuously rewiring itself throughout the entire lifespan,
all the way up until death what we call physical death. Now,

(15:48):
if you follow my journey in my work, you know,
as a professional psychic and a medium and as an
intuitive coach, I don't believe death is actually the end
of who we are. The energy in our heart has
to go some and the laws of physics says that
energy returns to source. Your definition of source may be
different from mine, and that's okay. Some call it heaven,
some call it the afterlife, summerland, a frequency of vibration, consciousness, love, many, many,

(16:13):
you know, different representations throughout history. And you know, but
this dogma of discouraging people from attempting to change their
lives because they're too old, they're over the hill. You know,
if you're over forty, you you're over the forty over
the hill party, right. But neuroplasticity, by contrast, reveals that
it is constantly rewiring itself up until the time of death.

(16:35):
And some scientists and some metaphysical I follow a lot
of science. I like, I like to blend science with
my spirituality approach because I think they're they're vital. As
you know, Carl Sagan reminds us, as Carl Jung reminds us,
that they actually go hand in hand. And some are
theorizing that death is actually just not real, that death

(16:57):
is an illusion that we actually returned to it an
established frequency like a radio station. I guess we'll all
have to find out, right, because the only thing guaranteed
in life is what death and taxes we all have
to pay them, and we're all going to that same location,
wherever that location may be. But rewiring throughout the entire
lifespan is a response to your experiences, or what I
always like to say soul adventures, particularly in response to

(17:20):
targeted friction and challenge. When we have those failures right,
and the mechanism, you know, these errors that I find
are primarily stimulus for the neuroplasticity study. There was a
neuroscientist by the name of Andrew Herb Herberman, and he explains, quote,
airs are the basis for neuroplasticity and learning end quote,

(17:43):
a statement that, while appairing simple, contains some radical implications
for how we should approach failure. You know, when the
brain encounter is an air, right, as he's talking about,
errors are the basis for neuroplasticity and learning. RE encounter
this error and it registers a mismatch, a mismatch between
what we call the expectation and the reality. Right, and

(18:06):
I've learned anytime I have expectations of myself or of others,
or it's you know, certain outcomes, it's usually met with
self disappointment because it was my expectation. Right. But in
this study that Andrew her Hermann as a neuroscientist, you know,
he looked at you know, how the brain through different
you know, studies, how it wires, how it functions, how
it fires. He actually saw that it registers miss the

(18:30):
mismatch between the expectation and the reality. And this mismatch
creates what neuroscientists call quote unquote prediction errors. And this
prediction error is precisely the signal that compels the brain
to update its internal models and revise its understanding of
the material world of our reality, if you will. So.

(18:50):
In contrast, when task proceeds smoothly and successfully, the brain
then conforms existing patterns rather than innovating news, and the
brain essentially thinks, ah, well, this already works. I don't
need to change this, okay, status quo. Right. But we
know from life that the only thing consistent in life,

(19:14):
learn it from experience. Acronym is change. The only thing
that's consistent life is things change. Nothing remains the same,
Nothing less change always is the progression of moving forward
in the human experience. And so you know, if the
brain is constantly saying, well, this already works, I don't
need to change anything. But success, paradoxically can lead to

(19:35):
what we call stagnation if it's just merely reinforcing existent
neuropathways without challenging them to reorganize and improve, which we
call neuroplasticity. So this understanding illuminates why high performers across disciplines,
whether it's you know, elite athletes, world class musicians, leading scientists,

(19:59):
successful onpreneurs, they deliberately cultivate environments where they encounter frequent
errors and setbacks, and they understand intuitively what what neuroscience
is now confirming for all of us is that the
brain's capacity to reorganize itself depends critically on experiencing mistakes

(20:23):
aka failures first attempt in learning. So when you make
an air and then you correct course, your brain lays
down new neural tissues and they literally create new architecture
where old pathways have failed. And this isn't metaphorical, this
is biological, right, this is Mark's opinion. The timeline matters

(20:44):
tremendously here because research on neuroplasticity accepting our failures as
part of the human condition, part of the human experience,
it reveals that predictable progression that I'm talking about. And
during the first week of encountering new challenges that generate
air fears, most people experience friction and discomfort. Right, It's
the caterpillar doesn't become the butterfly without what friction and

(21:08):
discomfort in the cocoon phase, literally deliquifying into a protein
sack of goo that's just hanging there. So what the
caterpillar calls the end of the world, the butterfly calls
a holy smokes. This is a whole new world, whole
new perspective. And I'm flying right, So it's really nature
teaches us that. And again it's not metaphorical, it's biological
because it matters. And the research on neuroplasticity reveals that

(21:34):
predictable progression. And I found, like some of the people
many people I've had on inspired living over the last decade,
some of the most inspiration influential, motivating and encouraged people
I've talked to that are people that have endured exactly
what I'm talking about, and they've rewired their brain to
find new neural pathways, including my own journey of what
I do, from surgeries to career change, to near death

(21:58):
experiences to severe loss of of good friends and family
members over my course of being here. It's rewired my brain,
and I think a lot of the abilities and gifts
that I do today from back at you know, two
decades ago, was the rewiring to open me up to
new pathways of understanding and knowledge and wisdom and humility
and deeper innerstanding and better understanding of both the physical,

(22:22):
the emotional, the mental, the material, and the spiritual aspects
of who I am, and I, you know, even put
myself as a veteran through the second hardest boot camp
in the military with the US Coastard. You want to
talk about friction and discomfort by all means, definitely uncomfortable scenario.
But I think all of these events, the sole adventures
that I talk about, has opened up my brain to

(22:44):
be able to explore in a prospect for the many
mysteries of life, including now working extensively with deep plant medicines.
With my own journey has even broadened my perspective of
life after life, Live die, live again kind of you know,
construct but if you after you know, the research shows

(23:06):
that after four weeks of consistent exposure to challenging tasks
with its inherent errors and corrections, of course, but automatically,
the brain begins to develop these new neural pathways that
have solidified sufficiently. What we once required conscious effort now
operates more automatically. And again it has nothing to do

(23:26):
with your age. You don't reach a certain point where
the brain stops learning. They've now showed that the brain
continues to learn from the incarnation of life all the
way through to the decarnation of death and the critical
barrier that many people face and that they quit right
before that neural pathways become established. You know, if you
want to talk about some of the most motivated people
in the world, go to Mount Everest. Some of the

(23:48):
most motivated people have climbed Mount Everest, and it just fy.
If you die on Mount Everest, they don't bring your
body back down. So I find that to be very
you know, encouraging, but also disturbing that you have some
people that are so motivated that they're willing to risk
their life. Talk about you know, neuroplasticity but some of
the most motivated people are still residing on Mount Everest
as permanent memorials because they don't bring your body down

(24:10):
if you die. But you know, it's give yourself thirty days.
That's why they talk about four weeks as being very,
very important. And you know, they experience the friction of
you know, week one, and then perhaps the discomfort of
week two, and then they abandon the effort, never reaching
that four week threshold where the brain would have completely
reorganized its pathways. And this means that people who achieve

(24:32):
genuine transformation are not necessarily more talented or inherently capable
than those who give up. They're just simply willing to
persist through the window when error and correction are doing
their crucial work. And I've found, you know, understanding this
changes how we conceptualize failure and it becomes not a
sign that we lack ability, but rather evidence that our

(24:56):
brain is exactly where it needs to be to undergo
meaningful change. So, you know, that's just a little snippet
for this episode. There's there's so much more to really
get into. But when we come back from our break,
I'm going to give you a couple examples from you know,
you know, Colonel Harland Sanders of KFC, to Oprah Winfrey

(25:18):
to Walt Disney himself, people that have had resilience and
re intervention across different industries that actually play a big
part of who we are, and also the tools and
the concepts that we use even in our human experiences,
you know. So I'm going to share some of those,

(25:38):
and then we're also I've put together a meditation poem
for this show specifically, so I'm going to give you time.
It's the meditation is called Transformation through Tribulation, and it's
something that I've put together and I want to share
that with you in the last half of this episode.
And it's really going to be a journey through fire
to ascension, from caterpillar to butter Fly. And we'll play

(26:02):
about ten it's about ten minute meditation and we'll go through.
I'll just read through the poem through the meditation for you,
and then we will wrap up this episode. But I
felt like it was a good way to discuss but
also apply because inspired living, we want to bring actionable
steps to help you understand why players are essential catalysts

(26:22):
for the human experience but also for human success and
to persevere and to overcome and to move from caterpillar
to butterfly in the human experience and enjoy it. Why
you're doing it even through that discomfort and friction. So
stick around. We're going to go to our break and
then when we return, we're going to pick this up
on why failures are essential catalysts for human success.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Own Times TV.

Speaker 5 (26:52):
Billions of people walk this earth, yet there is only
one you. Life offers endless connections, lessons and moments of awakening.
Are you ready to explore the beauty of this world,
the healing energy that surrounds you and your own sole adventure?
Mark Lainhart, known as the Intuitive Prospector, is a trusted
guide on that path. An internationally recognized psychic medium, medical intuitive,

(27:15):
and spiritual advisor. Mark Blend's experience with heart centered insight
from decorated veteran and first responder to teacher, minister, author,
podcast host, and mentor, his journey has been one of
service and discovery. His mission is simple to help you awaken, heal, grow,
and uncover the diamond within while discovering the hidden gem's

(27:36):
life has placed around you. Dare to explore, dare to
ris learn more at Mark Lainhart dot com and discover
the intuitive prospector online.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
Imagine becoming a super influencer, reinvent yourself, invest in your brand,
and then manifest your success with a robust, spheric approach.
Home Times Media and Broadcasting offers a unique and multifaceted
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Speaker 1 (28:49):
If that could be.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
You could be me. Just one word, if we could
find a way to get up side each other, is mine.
Welcome all and my shoes.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Welcome all my shoes. Well, before you abuse.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
Griticize and accused, welcome all shoes.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
All right, Welcome back, Inspired listeners. I'm your host, Mark Lenehart,
the Intuitive Prospector. If you want to learn more about
who I am what I'm doing in this journey of consciousness,
you can visit Markleneheart dot com or you can Internet
search The Intuitive Prospector and love to work with you
in the future for whatever it is you are looking for.
So today we're talking about why failures are essential catalysts

(29:44):
for human experiences and success, and we're gonna do a
quick meditation here at the to kind of wrap up
the show. But I found that one of the most
profound insights from that neuroplasticity that was shared in the
first half of the show, especially the research my own
personal experiences with studies, it's captured a simple principle and
it's this repetition is how the mind learns. Repetition is

(30:06):
how the mind learns. Repetition is how the mind learns.
The power of three say it three times. Repetition is
that is how the mind learns. Not motivation, not inspiration,
but repetition. I'll say that again. Not motivation, those help,
inspiration like this episode, that helps, but repetition. And this
distinction matters because it shifts the focus away from that

(30:30):
psychological state of I need to feel motivated, I need
to feel inspired, and more towards a behavior that cultivates.
I need to repeat the target behavior consistently. I need
to repeat the targeted thinking. I need to feel motivated,

(30:53):
I need to feel inspired. But I also need to
repeat the behavior consistently. I need to repeat the behavior,
the target behavior consistently. Say these words, because thoughts become words,
words become energy and vibrations, and that also then determined
your life path and where you're going. And so you know,
your subconscious mind accepts through repetition what it hears repeatedly.

(31:16):
We see it even in this day and age. You know,
if you tell a lie long enough, people start believing it.
We hear a lot of misinformation, a lot of gaslighting,
like a lot of cognitive dissonance through social media, through
the news outlet, and many times it's not accurate information,
it's misinformation, are straight up lies, and if you repeat
it enough, people start to believe it. Emperor's new clothes, right,

(31:38):
there's a reason, you know, and I said we would
live during the row in twenties, we'd lived during this
period of you know, the emperor's new clothes, and you know,
the sheep following the herd, you know, And if you're
not thinking for yourself, that means somebody else is leading you, right,
And so the subconscious mind accepts through repetition what it
hears repeatedly. And if you, you know, repeatedly, expose yourself
to challenge, to have air and to have failure and correction,

(32:01):
your nervous system eventually accepts this as normal. Now, again,
it's not easy of the transformation. It's not easy to
go from caterpillar to butterfly. But if you consistently, you know,
challenge yourself and put yourself through these, it does become
more normal. It becomes manageable in even the development necessarily

(32:23):
for transformation, for healing, for growth, for ascension, for evolution,
you know, whatever you want to call it. In the
brain has no inherent preference for safety over growth, and
it simply learns what you train it to learn. You know,
most unsuccessful people do not fail because they lack any
kind of talent or intelligence. They fail first attempt in learning.

(32:47):
Anytime you hear me, anytime you hear me use that
word fail. Once you in your mind to repeat first
attempt in learning. They fail because they lack the neuroplasticity
building behaviors. The neuroplasticity building behaviors necessarily to develop genuine competence,
and they want outcomes without being willing to engage with

(33:10):
the errors that produce those outcomes. And so it's what
you put in you get out right. And you know,
there's tons of historical evidence. And I said before the break,
I'd give you a few examples of people that have
inspired me on their own failures. You know, there's a
there's a quote I don't know if I still have it,

(33:31):
and it was from Sir Winston Churchill, who I'm a
big fan of World War Two. I'm not a fan
of what happened in history, but I follow World War Two,
in World War One and that whole time period. But
Winston Churchill said this quote, success is stumbling from failure
to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. End quote. Success
is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of

(33:54):
enthusiasm end quote. How many times have you lost your motivation,
your encouragement, your enthusiasm because of your own failures? I
can't tell you how many times. But when you start
to become that neural plasticity that I'm talking about. And
you want to have that neural plasticity building behaviors, give
yourself four weeks thirty days. You'll start to see change

(34:17):
and you'll change your own reality. You'll change your life,
you'll change your body, you'll change your mind, you'll change
your heart, you'll change who you are. And it's pretty spectacular.
But what I found through, you know what that biological
mechanism that drives an explaining failure, how it drives success.
And again that's what today's episode law fairs are essential

(34:38):
catalyst for human success stories is history provides us thousands
of case studies demonstrating this principle in action across virtually
every field of the human endeavor. You know, these historical
examples are not merely inspirational antidotes. They represent systematic evidence
that the path to significant achievement nearly always passes through substantial,

(35:00):
repeated failure. And understanding these concrete examples that I'm talking
about today helps ground that abstract principle in the lived
reality of human accomplishment. One of the patterns that I've
seen is, you know, from innovation from failure to breakthrough
you could take real time da Vinci, you could take

(35:22):
as pastime. But in the past Leonardo da Vinci real
time you could say Elon Musk. Whether you're a fan
or not, not pointing that out, but he has done
some tremendous things and he has felt, you know, especially
with the space X concept moving us into the next frontiers. Literally.
Another person that comes the most influential cases I've seen

(35:43):
James Dyson. He was an engineer, and he was an
entrepreneur whose name you may know because it became synonymous
with the vacuum cleaner I met. Most of you probably
have a vacuum cleaner. I just we have guess over
and I just vacuumed last night. Right, it's not a Dyson,
but he is the inventor of the vacuum cleaning system.
And Dyson's journey to success was not characterized by a

(36:05):
single brilliant insight that immediately generated this perfect product. Right. Rather,
it was marked by what could only be described as
an industrial scale failure. You know, before achieving his revolutionary
vacuum cleaner design, Dyson built let's see, I got my
notes here, five one and twenty six failed prototypes. That's

(36:28):
over five thousand prototypes that just felt the number is.
It is not exaggeration. It represents a documented reality of
his developmental process. And each of those fifty one hundred
twenty six failures taught him something essential That each prototype
that didn't work as intended provided data about what does

(36:48):
not work, information that was every bit as valuable as
knowing what does work. And his process exemplifies the concept
of improvement right through failure right and you know where
each attempt, regardless of whether it succeeds or fails, it
redefined the designed further by eliminating one more category of

(37:11):
approaches that will not work. Through you know, this process
of failure, learning and refinement, Dyson eventually created the breakthrough
vacuum cleaner design that revolutionized the industry. So Dyson is
one Walt Disney. Many of you know Walt Disney. You
know his pattern as a visionary entrepreneur who created one
of the world's first most influential entertainment empires, faced many

(37:35):
business failures. In fact, he was fired from his job
for not being creative enough in one of his jobs
early in his career, including bankruptcy for his first animation company,
and in that moment, bankruptcy would have felt like complete failure.
I know that I would feel that way. But you know,
Walt Disney, you know, through his vision and his perseverance

(37:56):
in his taking his failures to ascend. You know, even
though his vision was flawed at the beginning, he still
stuck to He stuck to his vision and his abilities
to you know, create what we call Walt Disney concept today. Right.
And you know, Disney himself demonstrated what could be called

(38:17):
creative persistence quote creative persistence, And rather than in banning
his vision, he allowed his early failures to redirect and
redefine that vision. And that's what I recommend for all
of you. If you failed, it's okay, first attempt to learning,
keep going, have that creative quote unquote creative persistence in
what you're doing. His commitment to his vision and creativity
kept him going. But despite the setbacks, eventually Disney created

(38:41):
Mickey Mouse, built Disneyland, and established the expanse of Disney
Empire that we know today. Right. So what deserves emphasis
is none of these achievements would have occurred without his
early failures, is what I'm saying. So the bankruptcy was
not a barrier to eventual success. It was part of
the path towards his success. Right I talked about a
all Harlan Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken also

(39:02):
known as KFC. He provided he provided another striking example
of failure's role at eventual triumph, where he faced over
a thousand rejections before finding a franchise partner willing to
support his fried chicken recipe and considering the psychological weight
of that experience being reject over a thousand times. And

(39:23):
you hear this with authors, with musicians, having your idea
and product dismissed, repeated by business partner, by inventors, by pundits,
by potential collaborators. Most people would interpret the first one
hundred rejection as evidence that the concept was flawed, right
over a thousand times. By the five hundredth rejection, Colonel Sounders,
you know, alternative interpretation of the data might have seen

(39:44):
more compelling. Yet Sanders persisted, and his story reminds us
to stay confident in the value of your ideas, and
you know, keep seeking opportunities. You know, his eventual success
with KFC, which became a global fast food giant, demonstrated
that essential principle that perseverance can lead to extraordinary outcomes,

(40:07):
and I totally agree with that. So believe in yourself,
have a vision that's crucial for overcoming obstacles, fail first
attempt in learning, and you know whatever that achieving that
long term success is for you. I just know that
those thousand rejections was not evidence that Sanders should have quit.
It was data confirming which approaches to business partners would

(40:27):
not work in directing him towards partnerships that would. So
sometimes when the door closes, the window opens and the
right people come into play. You can take Thomas Edison,
you know, the inventor, you know, developing the in a
descent light bulb. You know, he encountered over a thousand
failed attempts, and he always talked about it just takes
that one time, a thousand failures, a thousand ways that

(40:48):
will not work, you know, rather that one way that
will work, and he lit up the world, right, He
changed the world. You know, there's tons and tons of
cases where you can do your own research. From Oprah
Winfrey for being you know, fired early in her career
to what we know Oprah to be today, the Artimist
project that has failed, you know, NASA as its failures
and that successful you know mission with Artemis that just

(41:09):
went around the moon, and we're going back to the moon.
This is the last mission that's solely NASA UH and
moving forward, we're now going to be working with the
private corporations of SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin H. So every
mission moving forward and you know there's going to be
failures along the way, but it helps us to progress
and keep going and keep you know, moving forward. So
like like you said, there's a lot of different you know,

(41:29):
processes for failure, but it's about perseverance and determination and
resilience and you know, practice through those failures and keep
going with what you're doing because psychology is teaching us
through the brain, through neuroplasticity that the purpose of failure
is you know, your individual learning vulnerability. But it's going
to help you be the person that you want to
be in to transform. So we're going to move into

(41:52):
my meditation that I wrote. This is a poem for
the show. So what I want you to do is
I just want you We're going to cue up some
music here and I want you to find a comforble
position and I'm just gonna read through you this journey
to close out this episode, and I want you to
just let your breath settle into its natural rhythm, in
through the nose, out through the mouth. Be present in

(42:14):
this moment, whether you're listening to us live or you
catch us on an encore show or another episode you
know down the road. Just move into your breath and
move into its natural rhythm. And when you're ready, we're
just gonna read through this part one, which is called
the Breaking, and hopefully we'll have some music cued up

(42:38):
here to help us on this journey. And as you're
in the present moment, we're gonna move into the breaking,

(43:06):
and I forget some music to come on, we'll cue
that up for him. If not, we'll just listen to
the sound of my voice. There was a day when
the ground shifted beneath you, when certainty crumbled like clay
in an unrelenting fist. A failure arrived, unwelcome and undeniable,
and suddenly the story you had written about yourself lay

(43:27):
scattered across pages you could not gather, words you could
not take back. Perhaps it was not one failure, but many,
each one a fracture in the foundation you had believed
was solid and eternal. Trauma visited quietly, then loudly, leaving
footprints across the nervous system, teaching your body that safety

(43:47):
was an illusion, that rest was a luxury afforded to others,
not to you. The tribulations came, like whether you did
not order unexpected fierce demanding your attention in the ways
you least wanted to give it, Loss, disappointment, betrayal, illness, grief,
the thousand small and enormous, enormous griefs that compromise a

(44:10):
human life lived honestly, and in these moments, when the
pain felt sharpest, when your heart beats seemed too loud
and your thoughts too dark, you asked the question that
so many asked, Why is this happening to me? What
did I do to deserve this? Will I ever feel
whole again? Continuing to breathe, Now being present in the moment,

(44:37):
the impulse was natural to flee, to cover the wound
before anyone could see it, to convince yourself and everyone
else that you were fine, that you were strong, that
you did not need to fill this burning, this breaking,
this unbearable weight. But something else was stirring beneath the pain,
something that no one had named or prepared you for.

(45:00):
Alchemy beginning its work in the ruins, and as we
dissent into meaning. What distinguishes growth from mere survival is
not the absence of suffering, but the conscious choice to
turn towards it, to ask not just why, but what now.

(45:22):
This is the phase that researchers call deliberate reflection, not
the obsessive, loose loop of intrusive rumination, not the painful
replan that keeps you trapped in amber, but the intentional,
purposeful engagement with what has broken you. You begin to notice,

(45:42):
perhaps in therapy, perhaps in a quiet moment at dawn,
that the trauma has taught you something about the geography
of your own soul. Your failure shows you were, shows
you where your values actually live beneath the surface performance
you have maintained. It reveals which relationship and ships are
hollow and which are true, Which ambitions were yours and

(46:04):
which belonged to ghosts, expectations inherited from people who do
not live in your body. Victor Frankel, a psychiatrist who
survived the Holocaust, discovered something remarkable in the midst of
unimaginable wares. The suffering itself does not destroy us, but
the meaning reassigned to suffering shapes everything. He taught that

(46:28):
life holds meaning under circumstances, even in the darkest chambers,
and that our primary human drive is not pleasure or power,
but the search for significance, for purpose. When you stop
asking why did this happen and began asking what can
this mean? When you shift from victim to witness, from

(46:50):
passive suffering to active interpreter, the architecture of your experience
reorganizes itself. The broken pieces do not disappear, The pain
does not vanish, but it begins to have weight, substance, direction,
like grief transformed into art, like anger channeled into justice,
like fear, becoming the guardian of your most precious boundaries.

(47:13):
The phoenix arises. There is an ancient symbol that has
appeared in every culture, every spiritual tradition, across thousands of years,
and that's the phoenix rising from the ashes, not untouched,
not unblemished, but transformed. The phoenix does not emerge from
the fire and changed. Its feathers are not bright because

(47:33):
suffering is good. Suffering is real, and it damages but
the phoenix teaches us something vital, that endings can be rebursed,
that destruction can be the threshold to becoming. When you
pass through your own fire, when you have sat with
your own tribulations, not as punishment but as initiations, something
shifts in your nervous system. The researchers who study post

(47:57):
traumatic growth have documented this in thousands of lives. People
do not just recover from trauma, They often transformed through it.
They discover strengths they never knew they possessed, resilience they
did not know was latent in their bones, compassion born
from their own sufferings. Wisdom earned through the struggle rather

(48:18):
than inherited. Your relationships deepened because you have learned what
it means to be vulnerable, to need help to receive grace.
Your sense of personal strength grows because you have survived
the unsurvivable and discovered that your capacity for endurance exceeds
what your former self could not have imagined. Your priorities

(48:39):
reorganize themselves, and suddenly the things that seemed urgent reveal
themselves as trivial, while the things you took for granted
shine in the luminance of true value. Your spirituality, whether
traditionally religious or deeply personal, expands and deepens. Because you
have touched the existential question that most people spend their
whole lives of life. You understand, perhaps for the first time,

(49:03):
with total clarity, that meaning is not found, but created,
that the attitude you choose towards your unavoidable suffering is
the one freedom no one can take from you, and
that leads us to the ascension of this meditation and
ascension is not escape. It is not leaving the body
or your history behind. It is not a pretending the

(49:24):
fire never burned you. Ascension is the slow, delivering rising
of consciousness that has been redefined and refined by heat,
a heart that has been strengthened by breaking, a spirit
that understands in its deepest chambers that nothing can destroy
what you fundamentally are. The failures no longer define you.

(49:47):
They inform you. The traumas no longer control your nervous system.
They have become teachers, helping you recognize danger more quickly,
move towards safety with greater intentionality, hold your own hand
through the difficult passages. The tribulations are still part of
your story, but they are no longer the whole story.
They are chapters in a narrative of becoming part of

(50:08):
a plot that is still unfolding, still revealing its depths.
When you've walked this path from breaking, the deliberate reflection,
from meaning banking to transformation, from the flames to the rising,
you are offered something precious, the knowledge that you can
accompany others through their own fire. Your wound becomes a light,

(50:30):
Your survival becomes a testament, Your transformation becomes an invitation
to those still struggling. As Maya Angelo wrote, quote as
soon as healing takes place, go out and heal somebody else.
End quote. And this is the final ascension, not personal transcendence,
but the recognition that your personal transformation serves at purpose

(50:52):
larger than yourself, that your growth creates ripples, that your
courage gives others permission to be brave. And it's through
that perseverance. It's not absence of doubt. It is not
consistent confidence or unwavering belief. It is showing up again
and again and again, even when you're tired, even when

(51:14):
the path ahead remains unclear. The path of healing is
not linear. There will be days when the old patterns
return when the nervous system suddenly feels unsafe again, when
you slip into old thinking like old shoes. This is
not failure. This is the nature of transformation. The nervous
system learns slowly, gradually through repetition and compassion. Each time

(51:38):
you return to your breath, each time you choose to
practice deliberate reflection instead of intrusive rumination, each time you
take your power back when powerlessness threatens to overwhelm you,
you are strengthening the neural pathways of your own healing.
Perseverance means understanding that growth is not a destination, but

(52:00):
a practice, something you return to again and again and
again until the new way of being becomes as natural
as breathing. We move into the integration, and now, having
joined and journeyed through this story, you're invited to integrate

(52:21):
what you have discovered. Your failures have not disqualified you,
They have prepared you. Your traumas have not broken you imparably,
They have revealed your resilience. Your tribulations have not been meaningless,
They have been the furnace in which your truest self
was forged. The success that emerges on the other side

(52:44):
of this poem, This meditation, this journey, is not the narrow,
brittle success of avoidance, the illusion that you can live
without pain, without struggle, without the full texture of the
human experience. It is the depth of successes, the kind
that comes only from having drunk deeply, from both sorrow

(53:04):
and joy, from having sat with difficult truths and emerged
not destroyed, but deepened. Your transformation is not behind you.
It is not a destination you arrive at and rest.
It is an ongoing, unfolding, continuous practice of turning towards
life with awareness, intention, compassion, grace, and kindness. And as

(53:31):
you continue to breathe, as you carry this knowledge back
into your daily life, remember this. You are not the failure.
You are not the trauma. You are not even the triumph.
You are the one who walked through the fire and
discovered that you did not burn, but rather were refined.
You're the one who asked, in the midst of unbearable darkness,

(53:54):
not why me? But what can this mean? That asking
you reclaimed your power. You are the phoenix, not because
you have escaped suffering, because you have integrated it, transformed it,
and you have risen. So sit with this for a moment.

(54:14):
Let your breath settle when you're ready. If your eyes
are closed, let them come to an opening back to
the material world. Carrying this truth forward, your tribulations are
not the end of your story. There the beginning of
your becoming. This meditation poem that I wrote for you
today is offered as a companion to your own journey

(54:37):
through difficulty, whether you are currently in the breaking, the
meaning making, or the rising, or whether you're helping someone
else navigate these phrases. May this poem, this meditation reminds
you that transformation is possible, that meaning can be made,
and that the fire that threatens to destroy you also

(54:59):
how as the power to redefine you. And with that
open your eyes come back to the present moment, because
it's the true power in the present moment that resides.
And know that your failures are an essential catalyst to
human success and transformation. And I just want to say
thank you for hanging out with me today. We'll be

(55:20):
back for another inspiring episode here on Inspired Living. And
until our next sole adventure together, be kind, be caring,
be compassionate. Most importantly, in this world and what's going on?
Dare to dream? Dare to explore, dare to live, and
I hope that you discover the diamond within and the
many hidden gems that are all around us waiting to

(55:41):
be discovered as a prospector of life. And we'll see
you next time here on Inspired Living, or as I
like to say, no I'm gonna stay now I'm gonna go.
Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Take everybody,

(56:47):
h

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