How to think about Failure
Check out the podcast on this topic here.
Go into that old closet that you have in your brain that tells you that you need to know all the answers and get straight A’s to prove you are a success. Then when you find that closet, I want you to pour a gallon of gasoline on it and light a match and then walk away, laughing like a lunatic. Because if you can demolish that awful closet in your brain, you can do anything you want and you are an unstoppable force.
When you want massive results in your life, if you only stick to what you are good at, and what you know, and where people will applaud you, you will remain in your comfort zone. Learning requires mistakes. Growth requires failure. It’s the vitamin you need to take daily to get your dose of progress.
If you’re in marketing or a scientist, or maybe you like to gamble, you are used to “testing and learning.” You test a product or a campaign. You test soil or something in a beaker. You play a game of cards or shout out the color red or black, or you play slots or some shit. You make a bet and you learn and then you keep going and make a change based on your learning. If you run crappy creative where viewers “skip the ad” you make changes to the creative. You may be disappointed, but you keep going to get to better work. You need to do the same with yourself.
Make a bet on yourself. Believe in yourself enough to make a mistake and keep going. Try something new and fail a bunch of times until you know how to succeed.
You are the most important asset in your life and have the highest return. If you are avoiding failure, you are usually having the moldy thought of “what will (fill in the blank) say/think/do if I make a mistake.” That’s a normal dirty thought. To overcome this, recognize that whatever you feel as a result of failing, has everything to do with how you treat that data. It’s data. So observe it as you would “test” and learn from it. Do differently. Don’t quit.
