Failure Recovery: Recovery 101

Every Monday in February, this four-week series covers a four step process for getting back up after you’ve fallen down.

Knowing where you went wrong and what you would do differently is the basis for your failure recovery. This is where you bounce back. You fell down, now you are ready to get back up.

Trying and failing is better than not trying and all. Failing and not getting back up is equally as bad. The road to success is rocky and filled with mistakes, missteps, and disappointment. You drive through rain, fog and snow. Yet, for some reason, we expect smooth surfaces and sunshine for our journey. Wrong!

You’ve asked yourself, “What will I do differently this time?” This becomes to crux of your come back plan. Assemble your team – the people who have the advice, expertise and support you’ll need. What steps will you take.  And what are your Plan B’s? What are the problems you are most likely to encounter and what will you do if those things happen? If you fall down again, what will you do this time to get back up.

Don’t delay, start today. As soon as you put your plan together, begin implementing it. Success begins today!

Hedging Your Bets

I was talking to a friend the other day and the topic of marriage came up. She is pretty anti-marriage. Her logic goes like this: since half of marriages end in divorce why get married? Believe it or not, this is not going to be a treatise in praise of marriage (I’ve been single all my life so what would I know). However, it is simply remarkable to me that it is the possibility of failure that makes up her main argument.

The possibility of failure exists everywhere. So what!

Car accidents occur every day but I don’t see that stopping anyone from driving. People lose their jobs through lay-offs or firings every day but most people still chose to go to work and when they are out of work, they look for work. Some children are born with medical or developmental issues and most families have a history of some sort of disease, does that stop people from having kids? No, of course it doesn’t.

The possibility of failure exists; however, most people do a few things to reduce that possibility.

1. They realize that they outcome is greater than the risks. The joys of parenthood outweigh the potential risks of developmental or medical issues. The idea of sharing a life with the one you love becomes more important than being single. The ability to make money, gain benefits, and utilize talents makes employment worth the possibility of a lay-off, or worse, a firing.
2. They take the proper precautions. Drivers get car insurance and wear seat belts. Workers arrive on time and do their jobs correctly. Pregnant women take prenatal vitamins and make regular doctor visits. Those who value marriage invest in pre-marital counseling. People do what they can to lessen the possibility of failure.
3. They weigh options and make decisions accordingly. This doesn’t mean that people don’t make mistakes but they look at the pros and cons and study the facts prior to making a decision. Most people won’t buy a used car with bad brakes and bald tires unless they plan on changing them immediately. It would be a clearly risky move. A man or woman who enjoys dating might decide that this isn’t the best time to settle down with one person.
4. They trust themselves, their guts and their instincts. After assessing the risks, taking precautions and weighing options, they step forward with the confidence that they have made the right decision with the facts at hand. When you trust yourself and your ability to make sound decisions, even if you end up making a mistake, you'll probably have the courage to turn your situation around. That courage doesn't exist in those who are guided by a fear of failure.

My point is this: Never let fear of failure or, fear in general, stop you. Do the best you can to mitigate the negatives and then move ahead or move into another direction. If you try and fail, get up and try something else. Regrets don’t come from taking a chance. Regrets come from deciding not to do anything at all.

Failure IS an Option

Failure isn't just an option, if you are going after something major, failure is inevitable. I recently came across an issue of the Harvard Business Review that came out on the spring. It's dedicated to failure. Yes, I said failure. We talk often about success but failure is never discussed. It's the other F word, and like the obscene F word, we don't want to use it in polite company. Yet, failure is the flip side of success - two sides of the very same coin. With a coin, you can't have heads without tails and you can't have success without failure.

The issue focuses on some of businesses biggest CEOs and their philosophies and stories of failure. One succinctly said, "The only failure in failure is when we fail to learn from it." An very compelling argument can be made that we learn more from failure than success. Also failing prior to succeeding makes our success, when we get it, that much sweeter. We appreciate it that much more.

It scares me when I see how many parents shield their kids from failure, in an effort to improve their self-esteem. The problem with that is that it doesn't work. Winning all of the time, being rewarded for just showing up and being coddled and told you are wonderful 24 hours a day doesn't build self-esteem as much as it creates a dangerous level of narcissism. Learning that you are okay even when you fail and learning how to bounce back and be resilient are much better teachers of self-esteem.

I remember once, as a child, I was so bored that I actually did my chores. I did them without being chided, yelled at or reminded incessantly. I thought I was hot stuff. I went to my mom and proudly announced, "I did all of my chores today." She looked at me with a blank expression and said, "And? That's nice but I'm not going to reward you for doing what you are supposed to do."

On another occasion, I auditioned for a play and did not get the lead role. I was crestfallen. After consoling me, my mother gave me my plan of action. "So you didn't get the lead role," she said. "You did get a nice sized role though and that's great. Now you make sure you play that role to the best of your ability and maybe next year, you'll get the lead."

She didn't go to school and argue with the teacher that made the decision. She didn't argue with the mom of the girl who did. She explained that even when we don't get what we want, we have to do the best that we can with it. Failure, in my parents' eyes should make us work that much harder. What did that other girl have that I didn't? What can I do to be better? How can I improve so that next year, I have a fighting change.

After several rehearsals I realized she was a darn good actress. She also had a much better voice than I did and this was a musical. I wasn't the lead but I understood why. Still, I took Mom's advice, but I made an impact in every scene I had (I even stole a few). I never got the lead in a musical, but a few years later, I did get a leading role.

There were other times when I probably should have gotten a role or something else I worked for. When I would complain about the unfairness of it all or why I deserved what I didn't get, my Dad would agree. "You are right," he'd say - immediately making me feel better. "It isn't fair and you probably did deserve it but life isn't fair and you don't get everything you want or everything you work for. Keep it moving and eventually something will work out, but not if you just sit here and whine about it."

The moral of the story is that I grew up knowing that failure happens. Good self-esteem is born of successes and failures. You don't get everything you want all of the time. You don't get every job you apply for. Every guy or girl you like doesn't like you back. You don’t get every role you audition for.

Failure is nothing to fear. It's part of life and it doesn't define you. Failing a few times is a good thing, it means you are in the game. You'll never win if you sit on the sidelines and wait for the perfect opportunity. It certainly doesn't mean you're not good enough, smart enough or pretty enough. True elf-esteem comes from within and the belief that you are good enough when you win and when you lose.

What Would You Do ...

A question motivational speakers often ask is “What would you do if you knew you could not fail?” In other words, if success were a foregone conclusion (which it never is), what would you do that you aren’t doing now? I think a better and more realistic question would be, “What would you do if you knew there was a good chance that you would fail?”

• Would you drive if you realized that there was a car accident in the United States every minute?
• Would you open a restaurant if you knew that six out of ten fail in the first three years
• Would you get married if you considered the 50% divorce rate?

It’s not about what you would do if you knew you wouldn’t fail. It’s about what you would do in spite of the possibility of failing. In my estimation the only way to prevent failure is to never do anything, and even then, there is no guarantee. Besides, never doing anything is a terrible way to live. Where’s the fun in that?

To find success, you have to confront the possibility of failure. Since you know it’s there, plan for it. Wear your seatbelt, don’t text and drive, take a defensive driving class. Will those things prevent you from ever having an accident? Of course not, but at least they will reduce your chances of causing one.

If you dream of opening your own restaurant, don’t let the statistics stop you. You’d be better off talking to successful and not-so-successful restaurateurs and finding out from them what you should and shouldn’t do. Do your research. Find a mentor. Do what you can to improve your odds.

When it comes to marriage, I’d say that up to half of the ones that ended in divorce should have never been married in the first place! When you look at it that way, the odds improve. LOL! Still talk to a marriage counselor and maybe to several couples who’ve been happily married for a while about what works for them and what pitfalls you should try to avoid.

My point is that failure is nothing to fear. There is always a possibility of failing, so be prepared. The only way you really can’t fail is in your dreams and eventually you need to wake up.

Getting to Goal: Check-in

If you set some goals for yourself this year (notice I didn't say resolutions), how are you doing? If you have fallen off the wagon, I want to encourage you to get back on.

If you get off track, know that it's not too late, it's never too late to get back on. The difference between success and failure isn't that you have fallen of track, it's that you didn't get back on.

Success is never flawless. Ask any 'success' story and they will regale you with stories of all of their bumps and bruises; missed opportunities; and mistakes. And this goes for any and all success. We could be talking about Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. We could be talking about your cousin who lost fifteen pounds or your best friend who made self-care a priority.

Heck, Bill Gates dropped out of college and his first business failed. They made a movie about all the bridges Mark Zuckerberg burned while creating Facebook. If you talk to your cousin, she'll tell you about the time she had a few donuts at the Monday morning meeting or how she went a week without exercising. Your best friend can tell you about how difficult it was to break her workaholic ways.

The journey to success is bumpy. It's filled with potholes and detours. It doesn't matter if you fall off of the horse or how many times you fall, the important thing is that you always get up.

Failure doesn't make you a failure; it makes you human.

Getting Up Gracefully

One of my most embarrassing moments (and there are many) occurred at IKEA. I was there with my boyfriend at the time. We were heading down the stairs. He was a few steps in front of me when the cute (but clunky) shoes I was wearing caused me to stumble and fall. I fell fabulously down several stairs before grabbing on to Shaun’s leg to break my fall. He turned and looked down at me, apparently unaware of the scene I had just caused.

By this point, people on the stairs had stopped. Some were concerned; others were holding their laughter until they knew I was okay. And, I was. I quickly jumped up, laughed it off and said something about “those darn shoes.”

A physical fall is relatively easy to overcome, but a real fall — a failed relationship, a firing, a divorce, a bankruptcy or foreclosure, an illness or a death can be devastating. Those are falls that can’t be laughed off with a throw-away comment or a quick regaining of composure.

So how do you get back up after taking a demoralizing fall?

First, you feel it. It is not cowardly or weak to cry or get angry or sulk around depressed. In fact, it’s the smartest and strongest thing you can do. Suppressing emotion is not the same as dealing with emotion. Refusing to acknowledge what you are feeling doesn’t make it go away or make you feel it any less. Burying emotion down deep inside of you makes them grow and fester. Eventually they erupt, usually in some unexpected and destructive way. As a coach friend of mine says, “The only way to get through it is to go through it.”

Once you begin to feel a little better, once the heart has had its say, turn it over to the head. That’s right, put on your thinking cap. Ask a few critical questions.

• What can I learn from this?
• What could I have done differently?
• What will I do differently the next time around?

If you learn something from the experience then it is just that — an experience — and not a failure. When people bring up your so-called failure, you can educate them with what you have learned. If you choose to address them at all, some people just aren’t worth the time and the aggravation. Keep your head up and keep moving.

Finally, recognize that you are in good company. The most successful people, from athletes to entrepreneurs to musicians, have all failed and in many times failed gloriously. It isn’t the failure that defines them but the success that came after those ‘learning experiences’.

They came back smarter, stronger and more sure of themselves. And you will too.

Failure Focus

There is a trend among parents and educators to lavish praise on children for every little thing. Everybody wins! The winning team gets trophies but the losing team does too. Just showing up is often all that is required to get a certificate or ribbon. No one wants to leave any child behind or make them feel left out.

The only problem is when everybody wins, everybody loses.

Arguably, we learn more from failure than we do from success. Failure creates the opportunity to acknowledge and learn from mistakes – allowing time for reassessment and figuring out what went wrong.

Without failure, a dangerous sense of entitlement and an unrealistic worldview is created. People feel they deserve to win whether or not they put in the effort, if just showing up is good enough then why do more? And it’s not fair for those who do put in the extra effort to be lumped in with those who do just enough to get by. By rewarding everyone, we penalize those who truly excel.

A world where everybody wins would be nice but it’s not reality, not even close. You don’t get every job you apply for. The person you love doesn’t always love you back. And, many of us never earn what we feel we are worth. That’s not failure, that’s life. If you aren’t prepared to deal with the failures, roadblocks and obstacles then you really aren’t prepared for this life.

Failure teaches resilience. It teaches us to get back up and try again. You don’t learn the hard lessons when you move from success to success. You learn them when you go from success to failure and then back to success. Learning how to fail elegantly (without name-calling or whining) and smartly (learning what you can from the experience) ensures that a single defeat won’t become a final defeat.

Finally, knowing the agony of defeat, makes the sweet taste of success that much sweeter!

Your Words, Part 1: Speaking Your Own Reality

There is a whole lot of truth to the adage that actions speak louder than words. They do. But that doesn’t mean that your words don’t carry a lot of weight. What you speak matters. Your words are based on your thoughts and your thoughts and words determine your actions.

Recently, I was challenged to change some of the words I use. I was challenged to ‘speak words of victory’ because although I try to be positive, in some areas of my life, it’s habitual to speak words of defeat.

I talk about what ‘will never happen’ for me and what seems ‘a million miles away.’ The truth of the matter is that whatever we do, there is a reason and usually a benefit for it. In my distorted way of thinking, if I spoke negatively about the things I want most, and then I won’t be disappointed when they don’t come to pass.

When I stopped and really gave it some thought, when I speak negatively, I am creating that reality for myself. I am living the disappointment in that instant, in that moment. More than anything, I am making it real. It’s no wonder that those words had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Funny, the areas where I tended to speak more positively – training, coaching, friends, my writing – I tend to have had more success. However, the areas where I had tended to focus on defeat – finance and romance – I’ve experienced the least amount of success.

As soon as I began to speak differently about those things I noticed several changes. First, I didn’t feel as bad about them. I stopped feeling hopeless and began to feel like I was in control. I felt like I could have success. Second, I began to feel good about situation. I started to feel as if financial and romantic success were real possibilities for me.

My words changed. My thoughts changed and then, my actions changed. I've started acting in ways that aremore aligned with romantic and financial success. Are things perfect? No. But they are much better and getting better with every passing day.

Keys to Success: Expect It

This is the ninth in the ten part Keys of Success series. A new key is posted every Monday.


A few weeks ago, we had the Super Bowl. At the beginning of the game, every man on that field and all their teammates on the sidelines had one thought in mind: winning. Every Cardinal, every Steeler went out there expecting to win. Last year, John McCain and Barack Obama faced off in the race for the presidency. Both men expected to win.

Granted, there can only be one winner. The Steelers won the Super Bowl and Obama won the election. But the Cardinals and McCain didn’t go down without a fight.

Winning isn’t everything but the expectation is. No one enters a race or steps on a field without expecting success. A successful mindset assumes success. Successful people expect success.
Mistakes happen. There are setbacks. There are defeats; but, the successful person considers the bumps and the bruises part of the process. They know that the success will come. They can deal with losing a battle because they know ultimately, they will win the war.

If you are prepared, if you are ready to put in the work, if you have the vision; then there is no reason why you shouldn’t expect success. Go into every interview expecting to get the job. Make the presentation with the intent of wow-ing your audience. Expect your business to succeed. Expect to get the good grades. Expect it … and then follow-though.

The expectation alone creates the mindset but the follow-through is critical. Prepare for the interview. Work on that presentation. Study.

Expectation + Follow-Through = Success

McCain and the Cardinals didn’t win, but they got a heck of a lot further than any other candidate or any other team. They might not have reached the pinnacle of success but they still managed to climb pretty high. Expect success and you will still end up a lot further than settling for failure.

In fact, if you expect failure, don’t even waste your time with a feeble, half-hearted attempt.

You Might Have Just Dodged a Bullet

When I graduated from college, with a degree in journalism, I got a job offer for an entry-level job at a major news agency. Full of youthful ignorance and a healthy dose of arrogance, I turned it down.

As a result, I spent the next year and a half trying to get my foot in the door. When I finally did land at a local AM radio station, I was working for next to nothing. It was humbling to say the least.

Almost 20 years later, my family still talk about how great my life would have been if I had only gone to Atlanta. I’d be a major news anchor. I’d be married. I’d have a great family. And basically, my life would have been one long and magical walk in a beautiful park, on a bright sunny day.

Or would it?

Maybe my arrogance saved me from a worse fate than a year of menial jobs. Maybe I saved myself form an abusive relationship or avoided a terrible accident. I don’t know. I’ll never know. And, that’s okay.

We like to look at the path we didn’t take and romanticize it. “If I had taken that job, my life would be so much better!” Or, “If I had married the other guy, I’d be happier.” We might think to ourselves, “If only I had gotten that scholarship…” or “If I had moved to Los Angeles when I had the chance…”

The truth is that we will never know if things would have been better or worse. But painting that unrealistically rosy picture of the path not taken is a recipe for regret and frustration.

If you believe in God, karma or, even fate then you probably believe that things happen for a reason. Every decision I’ve made has lead me to where I am right now and the same for you. To tease yourself with dreams of what might have been or what you could have, should have or would have done is to perform an unnecessary form of mental torture.

Instead of ruminating over the past, look at where are now and figure out what the next step is. Yesterday is gone; but you can still do some with today and impact tomorrow.

Lose the Excuses: "I Might Fail"

That’s entirely possible – but, so what? In fact, it’s inevitable. At some point you’ll binge or have that piece of cake. You will splurge and go over your budget. You will roll over one morning and sleep in instead of working out. You’ll smoke that cigarette. Does any of that means you have failed?

When I was 26, I moved to Phoenix. I had visions of palm trees, warm weather and a snow-free existence. I also thought of myself as a modern-day version of the mythical Phoenix, rising up from the ashes as an incredible new creature! It sounded so nice! So I moved there, sight unseen, with no friends and no job. I managed to find a job and a get a place but I hated both of them. In fact, the Phoenix of reality, was nothing like the Phoenix of my dream. I moved back home nine months later.

I had been home for a month when I went over to my aunt’s house for dinner. My uncle pulled me aside and told me how disappointed everyone was with me. I had so much potential but I was failing. After all, I only managed to stay in Phoenix nine months, not even a year!

I responded by asking how long I would have had to stay to make him happy? A year? Maybe two? I told him the way I saw it, I hadn’t ‘failed’ at all. I moved to a city I’d never been to before almost all the way across the country. How many people would have taken a chance like that? If anything, Phoenix was a success because I took a huge chance and I made it work. I found a place. I found a job. I made friends. Maybe Phoenix wasn’t for me, but it taught me a few lessons (at least visit a city before you move there!) and it gave me the confidence to know that I can take care of myself no matter where I am.

Change the way you look at what you call ‘failure.’ If it teaches you something about yourself, if you learn something from it, if it reveals to you something that takes you in another direction; then it cannot be a failure.

So what are you waiting for? Lose the excuses! Go ahead and get started knowing there is no failure where there is growth or truth.