What Is Failure?

What is your greatest failure?

Most people find this question incredibly difficult for a myriad of different reasons. The answer to this question typically provides more insight into how the respondent views failure itself than the actual shortcomings demonstrated of the respondent.

An article was published in The Economist this week called “Fail Often, Fail Well,” that goes into depth on the benefits of learning how to fail effectively.

“Business writers have always worshipped at the altar of success. Tom Peters turned himself into a superstar with “In Search of Excellence”. Stephen Covey has sold more than 15m copies of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. Malcolm Gladwell cleverly subtitled his third book, “Outliers”, “The Story of Success”. This success-fetish makes the latest management fashion all the more remarkable. The April issue of the Harvard Business Review is devoted to failure, featuring among other contributors A.G. Lafley, a successful ex-boss of Procter & Gamble (P&G), proclaiming that “we learn much more from failure than we do from success.” The current British edition of Wired magazine has “Fail! Fast. Then succeed. What European business needs to learn from Silicon Valley” on its cover. IDEO, a consultancy, has coined the slogan “Fail often in order to succeed sooner”.

There are good reasons for the failure fashion. Success and failure are not polar opposites: you often need to endure the second to enjoy the first. Failure can indeed be a better teacher than success. It can also be a sign of creativity. The best way to avoid short-term failure is to keep churning out the same old products, though in the long term this may spell your doom. Businesses cannot invent the future—their own future—without taking risks.”

The piece goes on to give examples of how embracing and managing failures can benefit businesses and is a great read. But how can you apply the lesson to you as an individual as opposed to just looking from an organizational standpoint?

I grew up, like many people in our society, fearing failure. Whether it was working through school assignments or playing kickball at the park I had been conditioned to have a fear of not doing well. Although I think that feeling is very natural for most people I think it is very dangerous as well. By avoiding situations where you may fail you inevitably begin avoid situations where you have the opportunity to succeed.

As I have gotten older and experienced various successes in my personal and professional life I am more and more appreciative of the adversity that led to those successes. I may have not enjoyed the adversity at the time but it was a critical component in my overall success.

Two attitudinal adjustments have helped me immensely in managing my fear of failure and have thereby become a foundation for successes that I have: Although, like anyone else, battling self doubt is always a work in progress for me.

1. Maintain A Commitment To Learning From Adversity: By entering into every endeavor with a desire to learn from the experience it is difficult to categorize any outcome as a failure. So many of my past struggles have served me well in my future endeavors. Of course it is easier to recognize the value in a challenge after the bad taste has faded over time, but that is why it is so important to maintain the commitment to learning from your experiences on the way in.

2. Failure Is An End State And The Only Certain End State In Life Is Death: Failure is a bit of a dirty word for me in the sense that I don’t view most experiences as "failures." The only experience I view as a true failure is quitting. If you don’t quit something entirely you are merely experiencing a setback, and all setbacks can be overcome over time. If you are citing certain experiences as failures you likely gave up. By maintaining that the only certainty in your life is that it will eventually come to an end, a natural shift will occur in your attitude towards setbacks. Things may not always work out just as you would have liked but if you keep moving forward and learn from your setbacks you will avoid settling into a failure mentality.

Successful people and organizations push through and learn from "failures," with the most successful embracing and even seeking out "failure" learning opportunities. Embracing that mentality is not a natural feeling but one that will undoubtedly benefit organizations and individuals alike.

Conscious Pattern Recognition

Pattern recognition is not a new and groundbreaking topic by any means. I myself can recall numerous recent experiences where I have recognized the importance of piecing together life's recurring patterns in different contexts. The successful economist, writer, and muser extraordinaire Malcolm Gladwell wrote an entire book on our mind's unique ability to process unfathomable amounts of data through subconscious pattern recognition. He describes this subconscious ability in the book Blink as the human equivalent of instincts. These instincts are the subconscious mind's recognition, collection, and organization of patterns. The mind then sends the conscious mind a message so to speak at very rapid speeds. This ability is definitely important, but what about conscious pattern recognition? The kind of pattern recognition that can be honed through conscious recognition and effort.

It wasn't until today about 90% through a grueling workout provided by my lovely personal trainer wife that I had the epiphany of the extreme importance of conscious pattern recognition. As I said earlier, I have always had little moments of clarity where I recognize parallels that arise in different life contexts. However it wasn't until today that it fell into place for me as I realized how much better my wife's workouts are than mine. I started to think of how far ahead she is with her ability to create dynamic workouts that truly push me through an entire full body workout.

What do workouts have to do with pattern recognition? Well nothing really. But the disparity between what I can create and what she can create has a lot to do with pattern recognition. Certainly her talent isn't purely superior knowledge. I enjoy working out, am fairly knowledgeable on the topic, and have the benefit of osmosis as I live with her. So as I was walking back from my work out I began wondering whether her talent is a gift or whether it was honed from pure passion and a superior ability to recognize patterns within that facet of life.

I heard a phrase on The Biggest Loser a while back. Jillian Michaels, who is a beauty by the way, told the contestants one day that she and Bob are the best in the world at what they do. She went on to say that no one can make contestants lose weight like they do. I believe her. I wonder what her conscious pattern recognition ability is like when it comes to creating workouts. Does her mind visually piece together a map of the body and the areas of focus for each workout. Does her mind flawlessly fashion together workout algorithms to fine tune the body in master fashion? Does she use pattern recognition of similar problems amongst contestants past and present to devise her transformation strategy?

I think that conscious pattern recognition ability is one of the key components to success in almost all things. To this day I can step on the ice and recognize patterns in the game that many other people who didn't play at as high a level cannot. Are these people way less talented than me? Most aren't and many have more natural talent than I do. However, when it came to hockey I had an ability to recognize recurring themes in the game that was built through hard work and years of experience. Wayne Gretzky often talked of his ability to see two or three plays ahead of the game, an almost ESP like ability to anticipate. I would venture to say that his pattern recognition within the game of hockey is greater than perhaps anyone who has ever lived.

Many people who are successful in one area tend to be successful in other areas. This isn't due to the fact that they are superior human beings. They achieve consistent success because they possess a superior ability to recognize patterns which allows them to posture themselves for success in a wide variety of areas. Can you apply this concept to other facets of your life? I am sure you can. Think of your office environment. Do you see the same mistakes being made day in and day out? Do you see the same communication problems manifest in different organizations and sectors? Do you see similar attributes in the successful people? The unsuccessful ones? How can you consciously attempt to recognize patterns to continually adapt to each and every situation thereby setting yourself to achieve your goals? Kind of a new agey concept but a very transcendent and helpful one nonetheless.

"Desire Spiral" - Thoughts On Ambition, Success, and Burnout

Lately I have not really felt myself. Most times throughout the day I feel normal, but in the past month or two I have been plagued by intermittent down spells. Those who know me personally know that I am generally positive and upbeat so these little down moods got me a little worried. I have been doing my best to do some self reflection and soul searching to see what the source is and after a few weeks I think I am narrowing in on some causes. I am self diagnosing my ailment as “desire spiral.”

At about age 11 I knew that I wanted to dedicate my life to the great game of hockey. I wanted to earn a division I scholarship and play college hockey. I have spoken about how I probably should have set my sights higher on BadskiBlog before, but regardless I have no regrets. From that age forward I did whatever it took to achieve my dream. I sacrificed a lot and put in an extraordinary amount of hours driving towards that goal. The experience of setting a long term goal and achieving it taught me a lot. However, I was obviously unprepared to parallel those lessons over to my life after hockey.

I have remained driven in my post competitive hockey life but my focus has changed, broadened and become less concrete in terms of a defined end state. I now focus my efforts on things like career progression, self education, different ventures, my marriage, etc. All of these things (and more) are important to me, however unlike my hockey career there isn’t a destination in mind. I have general ideas of how I want all of these things to culminate into the life I want to live, yet I feel as though having an end state in each is self limiting. I don’t want to put the blinders on to opportunities that arise. I have experienced enough in my life to know that life doesn’t care about your plans. Life is like a tree; as you grow you branch out in the general direction you intended but often split off into a pseudo representation of your original idea. Needless to say, not having a relatively linear goal track like my athletic career has been hard for me. Which is what I believe is leading me to suffer from “desire spiral”

Desire spiral is the second and third order consequences that arise from being driven to achieve. I know I want to be successful. I know I need to work hard to achieve my goals and to progress as a person. But this desire often leads me to feel frustrated, down, restless, and often times less confident in my abilities than when I was just trucking along as an athlete seeing where the world would take me. Desire spiral is similar to the library syndrome, in that you don’t know how much you don’t know until you begin to learn. Desire spiral is you don’t know how much you can improve until you begin the journey of self improvement.

So how can you combat desire spiral? When I came across this article on Zen Habits that offers some great advice for combating burnout, which is very applicable and somewhat parallel to the symptoms of desire spiral. Below are a few highlights that I stole from the piece. These are only tiny excerpts and the full post has more in depth analysis of each recommendation. If you are interested the full post can be found here.

1. Achieve in increments. When you only focus on a big goal someday, it’s easy to get burned out by the daily grind. It’s like driving toward a mountain in the distance. You can drive for hours, but the mountain doesn’t seem to get any closer. And spinning your wheels gets real tiring real fast.

4. Define success realistically. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having big dreams and big ambitions. But if you’re constantly frustrated by a lack of progress, it might be time to take a step back and examine your goals. Are they achievable? Are you holding yourself to a reasonable timeline?

6. Take it slow(er). The world tells us to rush things: “Get there faster. Make money quicker. Retire sooner.” And while these things aren’t necessarily bad, they can easily get us in over our heads. If you’re feeling burned out and overwhelmed, it’s time to slow down.

10. Create outlets. If you’re a person of diverse interests (and really, who isn’t?), it’s likely that you have several very different goals and ideas bouncing around in your head at any given time. These ideas need outlets. If you hold them inside, they’ll eventually start interfering with your focus and creating unnecessary frustration, leading to burnout.

In other words, I think it’s okay – healthy, even – to start a few side projects as outlets for creative energy. Just make sure that you keep your priorities straight and your side projects fun. If these side projects become sources of stress, cut them out immediately.

I would add a few more to the already great list of recommendations:

1. Exercise - Never doubt the connection between body and mind. Whenever I am suffering from a bout with desire spiral I can always combat it with a great workout. Not only does it provide some alone time to collect your thoughts but your physical exertion eases some of the stress that your mind may be feeling. Everything seems more achievable after a workout.

2. Break bread (and bottles) with those you care about - Remember you should already be living the life you want to live. "Content but never satisfied" is the phrase I often repeat to myself. Its a little mantra of sorts that I created to remind me that the time is now. You should love your life but always striving to make it better. So if you are obsessed with success in terms of future achievements you are wrong. You are trying to better the already good life you have built for yourself. Just don’t let the “never satisfied overpower the content." That mentality is one of the root causes of desire spiral. Every time I go out and have dinner and a few drinks with the people I care about or talk to my family back home I know that in the grand scheme of things I am alright. I realize that I have it pretty damn good so I should relax and enjoy the ride a bit.

Leadership Opportunity Cost

The older I get the more I look for examples of leadership. In the majority of my posts on this blog there is a recurring theme of continuous learning no matter what the situation. Being a self proclaimed optimist I do my best to practice what I preach and learn even in difficult situations. I get emotional like anyone else but in the long run I tend to look back on difficult situations and realize that I learned as much if not more than I would had things gone smoothly. Check out my buddy’s guest post here for a more in depth explanation of this concept.

I was pumping a little iron in the good ol’ gym today listening to some thrash when I started to challenge this concept in a specific area. That area is leadership. Throughout my life I have been involved in sports, the military, business, etc. All of these fields provide a plethora of examples of leaders. Like anything else there are good leaders and bad leaders. I have always heeded the advice to learn from leaders both good and bad. From the good you learn what to emulate, from the bad you learn what not to do. Both are valuable, I do not doubt that. However, today when I was working out thinking about the ever present examples of poor leadership I started wondering if the two are equally valuable.

Am I, by being exposed more often than not to poor leadership, at a disadvantage in comparison to someone who is constantly surrounded by great leaders? Is there an opportunity cost to learning from piss poor leaders that outweighs the “what to avoid” knowledge and experience gained from being in their presence?

Rhetorical? Yes. Important to explore for yours and my personal development? Most definitely. Hockey is a small world. If the world we live in has people separated by six degrees of separation, then the hockey world is more in line with two degrees of separation. There aren’t too many names that come up that you haven’t played with or against or names that aren’t tied to someone that you have played with or against. In this small environment you get to notice trends amongst players, especially the ones above you on the hockey totem pole. I have noticed more often than not that the best players, the winners, grew up playing on winning teams. That is not to say that there aren’t diamonds in the rough because there are. I just think that the diamonds are more memorable and interesting than the winner who has been a winner on every team they have ever played on. What does this have to do with our discussion above? Well I think it has a lot to do with it. As I have said before, I believe sports parallel life. I don’t think it is a coincidence that a lot of winners stay winners.

Not only do I want to surround myself with great leaders because it provides a more enjoyable day to day experience. I want to surround myself with great examples so I can become a lifelong winner. Surround yourself with losers long enough and it is only a matter of time before you look in the mirror and are surprised by what you see. Life is really too short for that.
I am going to continue my lifelong commitment to learning from every scenario good and bad, but in environments where bad chi reigns I hope I am enlightened enough to know when to move on to a culture of success and righteousness.

What Do You Want?

I read this post by Ben Casnocha yesterday and found it interesting. He is reviewing a book, which I haven't read, and eventually gets to talking about being consumed with start-up or business success. Read the full post here. Ben argues that this is one of the drawbacks with the start-up life and admits that he doesn't know whether or not it is necessary to success in that area.

Most ambitious companies -- certainly start-ups -- require of their employees single-mindedness. They demand all-consuming focus, and to "give thought to the critical personal and political issues that affect one's emotional present" is seen a distraction. Some of the successful business executives I've met are absolutely immersed in their professional micro-universe. The politics of the world, their personal relationships, their personal philosophies: who cares? Whether they realize they're wearing blinders, I don't know. Whether blinders are necessary to achieve massive professional success, I also don't know.

I would take it a step further and say that this is a drawback to the pursuit of anything in life. When you want something and pursue it you risk becoming consumed by it. I did this with hockey for the majority of my life. I don't regret my personal pursuit of excellence in hockey, and I attribute much of my success to that desire and passion.

People struggle with being consumed by something they love and desire when they aren't honest with themselves about what they truly want out of life and/or by having a narrowed scope of a small portion of their overall life journey. You must know what you want out of life, and just because you want the one thing that is consuming you doesn't mean that there aren't other things in you life you wish to pursue and enjoy as well. So you want business success. What happens when you achieve it? What is the end state? One of my personal mantra's is "always content, never satisfied." This is my personal reminder to always enjoy where you are at and what you are doing, but to always be wanting and driving for more. To always want a better life for myself. I remind myself of this to put into perspective the things I enjoy in life as well; family, friends, experiences, learning, achievement, etc. You can see how focusing on meeting that sales quota for example can drown out those other things. Be honest with yourself and keep the totality of how you want your life to play out in mind.

Everybody loves a winner....

I came across this article today and it got me thinking http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/9143738/Fitzgerald-an-NFL-paradox:-A-WR-without-an-ego?MSNHPHMA. The older I get and inevitably the farther I am removed from competitive sports the more I appreciate winners and true professionals. No matter what it is, whether its tennis with guys like Federer and Nadal (very different yet very similar in their excellence) or someone like GE's Jack Welch. This article illustrates that this guy is a winner. He just gets it done and does it with class. Guys like this are great role models especially for young kids and even for old guys like me. As the article illustrates there are some sports and in this case positions where true winners and leaders are becoming hard to find. I remember one of my coach's always saying that everybody loves a winner and this rings truer to me now than when I heard him say it every day. People like being associated with winners, they like watching them succeed and see the good in themselves reflected in a winner's achievements and accomplishments. I have been trying to spend extra time and attention studying winners and successful people. Worst case I learn through osmosis. Typically I am reminded of where I am at in the world's pecking order and what it takes to truly be successful at something. Articles like this keep me hungry and going in the right direction. What winners are you studying?