We’ve seen all the memes about “failing forward” and “using failure as a stepping stone.” But STILL, subconsciously, we let the fear of failure hold us back.
That fear is hardwired into us, and until we put ourselves out there and fail over and over, that fear will lock us down. Because deep down, we believe failure is a problem.
But failure is not the problem. What we make failure mean is where we’ll find our problem.
Today’s episode gives three real life examples of failures so you can continue to reframe how you think about your misses, and get after whatever you’ve been backing away from.
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, Tommy Geary. This show is gonna give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Episode number 76, Durable Dad Podcast.
Speaker 1:
It is back to school time, so some acknowledgement of what the kids are going through and if that makes them more of a pain in the ass in the house. Biggest thing we can do is, as the school year begins, keep a tab on our emotions, keep a tab on our expectations and try to stay as calm as possible, as steady as possible, and empathize and encourage and believe in our kids as they start the school year. So, shifting today, today's topic, we're going to talk about failure and we're going to start with a failure over here at Tommy G Coaching. Yesterday morning it was a Tuesday. Tuesday is when the podcast gets released, and at 8.24, I got this email from one of the guys that listens and it said in this week's episode you sounded different off, maybe. I just wanted to reach out and see if you're okay and I was just. My brain started thinking was I off last week? When did I record? What was I doing when I recorded and reminded myself that this is feedback and that we like feedback and that feedback is going to help us grow. So finished what I was doing and then I went and listened to the episode. It was probably like 10, 15 minutes later and when I logged into Spotify, pulled it up, said to Brenda hey, do you know that episode 75 is 27 minutes long, Not our typical length of episode and her mouth kind of dropped a little shock in her and she had uploaded the unedited file that I'd sent her.
Speaker 1:
This is like a rough draft of a paper that you're writing. It's got long pauses. I'm sipping coffee, I'm repeating the same thing over a few times. It's not dialed, it's not the final cut that you guys listen to every week. And in this recording I get a lot of my random thoughts out. I kind of go on tangents. I'll say the same thing a couple times to make sure that it sounds right and the way that I really want to say it. And then Brenda takes it and she cuts it up, she moves stuff around, she turns it into something that we can digest, that we can listen to, that's concise and something that gets our message across pretty clearly and that's kind of our workflow and that's how it's been going for the last year and a half or so.
Speaker 1:
So the uncut rough draft version got uploaded and that's what got downloaded by any of you guys that listen early on Tuesdays and if you didn't listen early last Tuesday, you missed it. But this one guy sent me an email to check in to see if I was okay and I am like so thankful that he sent this in. But when we realized this, I was sitting outside working from the porch. She was inside kind of our sunroom, sitting on the couch. She deleted it and then she stood up and said my whole body feels numb right now. I think I'm having a traumatic response to this and I don't know if you can hear it in my voice. I was kind of laughing, taking it pretty lightly, and she was like no, I don't know if you can hear it in my voice. I was kind of laughing, taking it pretty lightly, and she was like no, I don't think you understand what got uploaded, but I did understand. I understood that people heard the rawness the side of me that's not very natural at recording these podcasts and I just said like I've put myself out there so much that, yeah, I feel embarrassed about what happened, I'm kind of bummed, but this is just part of the process and Brenda's having this total different experience. You know she writes, you know she writes, she posts a lot for the company and she also stays behind the scenes, which is totally fine, huge asset. And it doesn't set her up to fail, at least not publicly. This is what we want to look at, what we're making a failure mean, Because the problem isn't the possibility of failure, it's what we make failure mean. If we make failure mean that we're an idiot or that we're weak or we're not good enough, we'll avoid failure at all costs or we'll worry about what other people will think if we mess up, if we make a mistake, and then we don't put ourselves out there, we don't try, we don't have a conversation, we don't do something new. So I got a buddy that's going for the Spartan trifecta.
Speaker 1:
So the Spartan races. The Spartan trifecta is doing a sprint which is 5K and obstacles, a super which is 10K and obstacles, and a beast which is 20K, 13 miles, all the obstacles. You do it all in one year. That's called the Spartan trifecta. And he did one race last year, loved it got super motivated and at the beginning of this year he committed and since he's committed to this he's looking good, he's feeling a lot better, you can see he's healthier and he's checked off the sprint, he's checked off the super and the beast is next weekend. So I talked to him during a workout last week and he wasn't sure if he was going to go for it. His knees were kind of shot after the super. The beast that he's going to run is about 10 hours away driving and it's the hardest of the three races right, it's 20K, 30 obstacles, and it's the most vert out of anything that he's done before. So he's not sure if he's going to do it. Last time I talked to him he was still on the fence, but he did say I used to be afraid to fail, but I'm not anymore.
Speaker 1:
You know, imagine the opposite that if he was making failure mean something negative, something bad about him or about what other people would think of him at the beginning of the year, he wouldn't have tried any of this and he would have missed out on the training, the challenges, the push crossing, the finish line, that celebration for the super. His wife and kids went there with him and they camped out and his whole family hung out together for the weekend. Like that. That's such a memory he's going to have because he went for it. So even if he doesn't go to the beast, he can call it a failure, but he's not afraid that that means there's something wrong with him. He'll try it again next year If he so even if he doesn't go to the beast, he can call it a failure, but he's not afraid that that means there's something wrong with him. He'll try it again next year. If he goes to the beast and can't finish and he fails at finishing, he's not afraid of doing that. He knows he's not a bad person, he knows he's not screwed up and he's not afraid to fail. So I'm going to say it again the problem isn't the possibility of failure, it's what we're gonna make that failure mean. So I'm gonna do one more example, and this is more about productivity.
Speaker 1:
I'm working with a guy that has three kids. He's got one on the way. Both him and his wife work. He travels a lot for work, and planning and organization have always eluded him. Those are his words, and now everything's really falling on his wife to plan, to get ahead of things, and he wants to change that up. And so in the first few sessions we did some planning, we took some action. I showed him some strategies. He executed, he saw the benefits, but outside of the sessions he wasn't planning. So in coaching, that's what we start to explore when we want to do something and we're not doing it. What's happening in our brain.
Speaker 1:
So, as we were talking about it, what kind of came out was this worry that if he took the time to plan and then didn't execute that plan, that he'd be failing. But what is he making that failure mean? So why don't you want to fail? Is the question that I asked him, and he said I'd be coming up short. I'm not used to failing. He's starting to make up this story. He's starting to make up a story that failure means he's coming up short. When we're out in the world and we take a shot at something new and we miss, that result is totally neutral. It's our story about the result that really matters, about the result that really matters. So for this guy, he knows when he plans he gets more done, Even if he doesn't execute the full plan. He's more productive than when he doesn't plan his day out. His goal is to be more helpful around the house, to be less stressed with the kids, and planning is going to help that. So instead of making failure mean that he's coming up short when he doesn't complete his plan for the day, he's making it mean that he's trying, that he's getting better at planning, that this is the process. This is how I grow. If you're stuck, you're not trying something.
Speaker 1:
Procrastination is a big symptom of fearing failure. So if you're procrastinating on something little, something big, explore that, Because if we don't fail, we're not going to grow, we're not going to become our best self just by doing things that we're comfortable with, doing things that we're confident we'll do a good job at. So we know all of the memes the you got to fail forward. Failure is just a stepping stone. Success is built upon failures. We know these intellectually, we read them, we hear the reels of the motivational speakers talking about them.
Speaker 1:
But subconsciously we avoid failure and it can be as simple as having a conversation with your wife or going to the gym more often, or putting your resume out to a few people, or managing your time better and planning your day. If you've been wanting to work on yourself and it's not happening, it's because you're making failure mean something negative about you. So we want to get unstuck, we want to start trying new things, because that's when life gets more interesting. And when life's more interesting we have more joy, we have more excitement, and then we're cooler dads, we're better husbands. Life just gets to be more enjoyable. So failure is okay. That's what I got for you guys this week. Hope you have a good one and I'll catch you next time.
