C (3:05)
I don't hear anybody talk about how to get a return on your failure. And yet we all fail. We all miss, we all come up short. Now, I know you're immediately. You're already grabbing hold and do what you do so well. You're taking notes and you're leaning in. But let me just ask you a question. How many of you have failed at least one time? Let's. Yeah, yeah, we all fail. No one likes it. When I was young, I didn't like failure at all. I felt that when I messed up, it looked bad on my leadership. And people would say, well, you know, you failed. You're not a good leader. I was really privileged to have Robert Schuller as a mentor. And Bob and I were having dinner one day, and he said something to me that really helped me. He said, let me give you a question so that when you fear failure, you can ask yourself, and it'll help you get back into the arena of action. And the question he gave me that day was a real help to me for a period of time. And the question, he said, john, when you think of failure, ask yourself this question. What would I attempt to do if I knew I wouldn't fail? And so, man, I wrote that down. Okay, what would I do if I knew that I wouldn't fail? My. That's huge. Okay? And for the next probably year, when I would look at something and I thought, there's some risk in it and I'm not sure I'm gonna do it very well, I would ask myself the question, well, will I do it if I'm not gonna fail? And the answer was, yes, of course. So it would get me active. And so it was a good question for about a year, but it really wasn't a great question. And here's why. It's really not a true question. When I ask myself, what would I attempt if I knew I wouldn't fail? That's impossible. There's nothing that you can attempt that doesn't have a high possibility of some failure in it. So when I removed failure, it gave me courage to get started. But guess what? Soon as I got started, I failed or I messed up. And I thought, okay, it's a trick question. It's not a good question. So I'm gonna give you a question today that will set the entire foundation for how to receive a return on failure that you should ask yourself. And if you ask yourself this question, it's gonna keep you consistently in the arena of action, and it's also gonna help you get a return on your failure. The question you should ask yourself is the question I ask myself all the time. What would I attempt if I knew I was going to fail, but I was gonna receive a return on that failure? In other words, what am I gonna do if I know that in this project that I'm entering into, I'm gonna have some misses, I'm gonna have some losses, but it's okay, because in the process of failing, I'm gonna receive a positive return on my failure? Now, all of a sudden, that's a realistic question. And I'm gonna give you the ways that you can receive a positive return on failure. And the reason I wanted to do this lesson was I wanted to prepare you mentally, emotionally, so that when you do have your misses and have your messes, that instead of it being a setback to you, it'll be a stepping stone for you. And trust me, what I'm gonna give you today. And if you'll just follow these instructions, take good notes, and begin to integrate this into your life, you're about to go to a new level of living, because failure will no longer dominate you. Failure will no longer intimidate you. Failure will no longer be your master. You will begin to become the master of failure. So how do I receive this incredible return on my failure? Here we go. So, number one, understand the difference between good misses and bad misses. And a good miss is good. So what I'm saying to you is there are times you don't hit it. You don't hit the ball. There are sometimes you have good misses and good misses are good. And then there are times when you have bad misses. A good mission, a good miss didn't get you there, But a good miss moved you forward. A good miss is failing forward. A bad miss is failing backward. So in your misses, you just gotta ask yourself, well, I know I missed, but did it get a little closer? Don't miss this. In a good miss, we make adjustments. Ooh, I Learned something. I'm gonna have to change this. In a bad mission, we make excuses. It's easier to go from failure to success than it is from excuses to success. So in a good miss, in a good miss, we change for the better. And in a bad miss, we don't change. Those are good misses. Those are bad misses. The inability or unwillingness to make adjustments in failure will keep you from getting a return on your failure. But as long as you keep adjusting and not making excuses. And by the way, remember this, the best excuse is your worst excuse, because it sounds good and you believe it. Number two, the second thing on return, on failure, embrace hard. Just embrace hard. This is Mark Cole, our leaders. One of his favorite expressions is just. He said, just embrace hard. There's a book I would encourage you to get if you haven't gotten it. It's a classic book. It's an older book. I read it many years ago. But it's Scott Peck's book, the Road Less Traveled. It's a great book. And the first three words in the first paragraph on the first page of this book is worth the whole book. In fact, the first three words, they are the book. Scott Peck opens up the book the Road Less Travel with these three words. Life is difficult. He said, this is one of the greatest truths that we can ever embrace that life is difficult. He said, what is interesting is the moment that we embrace that life is difficult. It no longer becomes difficult because we have accepted it as a fact. So therefore, we do not have unrealistic expectations of what life should give us. The moment we embrace that life is difficult, it's no longer difficult. I just love this mindset, and I just love the way that he presents the fact that you have to embrace hard. What do I do? What do I do with my arm? Everything worthwhile is what? It's uphill. It's all uphill. Everything that you do every day you get up, you should realize you gotta climb a hill. You have to swim upstream. You gotta lead your life. You can't accept your life. And by the way, when I'm talking about swimming upstream, no one ever drifted to a desired location. So there's no such thing as, I paid no attention to my life, and I just kinda took it easy and I ended up in a good place. When you drift, you never get to your desired location. You have to understand that it takes a long time, that you have to pay a high price. And the moment that you embrace hard, the moment that we say, okay, it's okay, it's okay. It's okay for it not to be easy, and it's okay for me to have these. The moment we embrace hard, we begin to receive a return on failure. Because let me tell you before you embrace hard. If you embrace easy, failure is your enemy. If you embrace hard, failure is your ally. You just gotta figure out what you want with it. Number three. To receive a return on failure, anticipate failure. Anticipation influences preparation. So when I anticipate failure, I begin to prepare my life for it. I have mental preparation because I anticipate failure, not because I'm negative, but because I'm attempting something big. If you wanna decrease something, attempt something. If you wanna decrease failure, attempt something small. But you also decrease your fulfillment. Go big, go big or go home. And so my mental preparation is this. In the midst of difficulty, while I'm trying to attempt something big, I will keep moving. I will keep moving. In other words, I will not let failure stop me. I'll keep moving. And the reason that I'll keep moving is because it's in the action and in the movement that you find the answers. You don't find the answers when you stop. You find the answers as you move. People that say, I've gotta know the answer before I do something will never do something. The answer is in the action. It's what I call action attraction. The moment that you take action, you. You begin to attract people, resources, opportunities that come your way. So in the midst of adversity, the temptation is to stop, to freeze, to hold, to say, I'm not gonna do anything till I understand what's no, no, I'm gonna keep moving. The second mental preparation I have is that I will keep adjusting. I'll keep adjusting that in the process of where I'm going. That wasn't it. Okay, well, I gotta back up. I gotta make a U turn here. Oh, I've gotta move over here a little bit. I will adjust. I will adjust my way to victory. Victory's not automatic. Victory takes adjustments. So I will keep moving. I will keep adjusting. And I will keep believing. I will keep believing in my cause. I will keep believing in my mission. I will keep believing in my calling. I will keep believing. Number four. If you want to receive a return on failure, encourage others with your failure. Encourage others with your failure. Wow. If I had one wish, you know, if a genie could come out of a bottle and give me one wish, what I would wish is, you could have seen me 50 years ago. I wish you could have seen me 50 years ago. I wish you could have heard me speak 50 years ago. I wasn't any good. I know you think I'm humble, but I'm not. I wasn't any good. Now, the reason I wish you could have seen me then is because this is huge. This is absolutely huge. You gotta understand, you practice your way to success. It takes time. But I'm here to tell you. I'm here to tell you those misses and those losses, if you'll just be humble and you'll say, okay, I got a lesson here. And you'll learn that lesson. And when you miss, just remember your friend John said, it's okay. I've missed more than you. I've lost more than you. I've failed more than you. I've been there and I'm still there. It's not like I stopped failing 10 years ago. I still have my losses and I still have my misses and understand that if we have the right response to failure, it will develop character in our lives.
