So You’re Failing (Or Afraid to Fail)… What Now?
Living in a digital and connected world can mean failure is more public and permanent so we risk less.
Depending on your age, most people can remember the first time they heard Linkin Park’s hit song “Numb,” from their sophomore album Meteora.
I was in college when the album dropped. Throughout campus you could hear the song pumped through dorm room speakers and car windows. A fraternity brother blasted the song after failing a major test. A girl I knew blasted the anthem when she couldn’t live up to the expectations of her parents. I remember blasting the tune while crying into a beer after a breakup the day before Valentine’s Day.
It seems for every season of life we have an anthem. If you’re like most people there are songs you listen to on your best days and your worst days. More often than not, though, it’s the lyrics on our worst days we connect with.
At one of the lowest moments in my life where the prospect of a job, a romantic relationship, and any semblance of a future were non-existent, my failures seemed to overshadow everything I touched. One evening, however, I found myself at a metal concert where my favorite bands were playing. Before the headliner came on, a band I never heard of took the stage and blew me away. Their lyrics were deep, content relevant, and their stage presence demanded your attention. I went home and bought their album, entitled Messengers. Day after day, I screamed their lyrics at the top of my lungs, especially the songs that dealt with heartache and failure. One song in particular seemed to speak the lyrics of my soul: “Your life fell apart in your hands, and you’ve got the scars to prove it.”
While screaming those songs made me feel better about my situation because I could relate, they didn’t fix my problems. I still felt like a failure and was dealing with a life marked by personal shortcomings. Maybe the other line from the song that ran through my head while I laid awake at night was becoming more of a reality.
“It seems like you’re giving up.”
It was true. I wanted to give up and accept my defeat. But little did I know how much that song — and band — would come to play a vital role in recovering from failure.
Playing it Safe
There’s only been one point in my life where I’ve “tripped balls,” and it wasn’t because I took drugs.
I’d been up for eight days straight getting one to two hours of sleep each night. I’ve you’ve ever watched movies about military training, you’ll understand that sleep deprivation is one of the training conditions for certain schools soldiers attend.
I was attending the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and by night #5 I began to have small hallucinations. By night #7, I watched in utter confusion as tiny gingerbread men ran down a hallway I was waxing and slipped under the crack of a door. I lost my mind and chased them into the room.
Every evening, our cadre had us up all night stripping and waxing the floors. But no matter how shiny and flawless the floors were, it was never “good enough.” They would then take us outside at 4 am and we’d exercise until the point of exhaustion and muscle failure, only to do it all over again. Failure after failure after failure even though I was trying my hardest. It wouldn’t be until years later that I realized the importance of what they taught me.
Life is unfair. Failure will happen no matter how hard you try to keep it from happening — even when you did everything right. What our cadre wanted to know was whether we’d give up or keep going?
For many, the answer is to quit while you’re ahead. Living in an increasingly digital and connected world can mean failure is more public and permanent. One small mistake of trusting the wrong person can lead to something as frightening as revenge porn. We see meltdowns on social media, a celebrity’s public failure, and sometimes even our own in the proverbial public square. Thus, everyone’s online persona is often marked by their success. Look at me on this awesome vacation! I’m losing weight! New job, baby! My BF/GF/spouse is the best!
When’s the last time you saw someone take a selfie crying into their pillow?
The message we learn about failure becomes this: “If there’s something to hide… hide it well.” We’re authentic only to the point that we’re comfortable we won’t fail or receive ridicule.
But like that lesson I learned from the military even when I was doing everything right, playing it safe won’t keep you from failing, let alone ridicule (believe me, they reminded us each night how worthless we were).
Sometimes you can be an awesome boyfriend or girlfriend, but you’ll get cheated on and have that relational failure become public. Sometimes you can be an awesome spouse only to have a divorce you don’t want come out of the blue. That too, can become public and shameful. Sometimes you’ll work hard, have the talent, and not get the job. Some schmuck will land your dream job and gloat about it.
What we ignore is that the road to victory and resilience is pockmarked by frequent failure. Defeat, if you’ll let it, can be life’s greatest catalyst for wisdom.
Leaving the Shore
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” -John A. Shedd
There’s a well known story told by many who’ve joined the tech company IBM. According to the story, Tom Watson Jr. — the head of IBM at the time — had a young account executive come to his office to discuss a failed development project that lost IBM close to $10 million dollars. The young man expected to be fired on the spot and handed in his letter of resignation to which Tom Watson Jr. shook his head and responded,
“You’re certainly not leaving after we just gave you a $10 million dollar education.”
Throughout life, my greatest achievements and strengths have come out of learning from where I failed. Most successful business owners, entrepreneurs, comedians, musicians, doctors, actors, writers, and just about anyone can point to their repeated moments of failure versus their success. While they might be successful now, the moments slugging it out in a trench after an epic fail are what they point to as their defining moments.
This sentiment has held true for me as well.
Years ago after lying in my bed wanting to play it safe and give up, I remembered the final line of the song I’d been singing.
“Wave goodbye to the past
You’ve got your whole life to lead
It’s time to gain some ground.”
Those lyrics became my mantra as I took steps to recover from my past failures and face down the fear of failing again. The ironic twist is that the lyrics from that song were written by the metal band August Burns Red. Their lead singer would form HeartSupport — the same organization in which this article is published — and of which I joined by leaving a comfy corporate job, taking a massive pay cut, and venturing into unknown waters.
It hasn’t been easy. And it hasn’t been without its share of public failure (we ended up publically broke and on pay cuts at one point). But leaving the shore and sometimes getting attacked by the sharks has been worth it.
Deep in our guts, each of us knows we’re built for more but the temptation is to play it safe. We want to remain as safe as the ship in the harbor. But ships aren’t built for harbors. And smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.
So go find those choppy waters. Get shipwrecked. Swim to shore. Thrive. Only then will you be able to tell your story of triumph.
And it’ll be all the sweeter.
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