Something A Little Different

Have you ever been in an uncomfortable situation? More than likely, some time or another, we have all experienced one. For just a minute, think back to that moment, remember it, visualize it, and feel it. Now, how did you handle that situation? Do you feel like you recovered well from it, or do you feel like the moment owned you?

Depending on how old you are, you have probably been in situations like these several times with mixed results. Sometimes you recover well, and sometimes you don't. At least, this has been my my previous experience. If you will, compare your reaction to the moments we are remembering. Did you react the same way each time with different outcomes, or did you react differently (speaking from a philosophical standpoint) each time with different outcomes?

Maybe, it has something to do with the way we are wired with a fight or flight mentality, I'm not sure. I have found, in my experience, that if you embrace the situation instead of run from it or defend yourself you easily dispell the power of the situation attempting to make you uncomfortable. If you run or defend instead of embrace it you will be feeding it the power it needs to live.

How do we learn as we grow from childhood to this thing called adulthood? That's right, by trial and error. Really, it is mostly error which teaches us, and not success. Why is that? Several reasons, but before we dissect it too much I have a quick story that illustrates the point.

A few years ago I started playing poker. At first it was for fun, and then it was to support myself when work was scarce. When I first sat down at an online poker table I thought I would clean up. I thought I had a good grasp of the game. 45 minutes later, I had an empty account. I failed. I lost my first $100. It hurt. It was a most painful paradigm shift, but looking back now, it is easy to see that paradigm shift, that painful moment actually charted my course to be a winning poker player. Because I never wanted to be in that situation again, I went right out and found everything I could to help me learn how to play that game. After some education, I became mildly successful at the tables.

I have a friend, we'll call him Phil, who saw my progression into a mildly successful card player and thought to himself "I can do that. It's easy" and sat down at a poker table and began to play. His experience was MUCH different than my experience. He turned his $50 into $1500 in his first month of playing. He didn't know any more than I did, but his short term luck (deviation they call it) was running incredibly well. He succeeded right off the bat. He was a success his first time out, where I was a failure. Because of this, he thought he knew how to beat the game. Odds, statistics, game theory none of that mattered to him. "I know what you are saying", he would tell me "But you can't argue with my results. I just feel it". There was absolutely NO convincing him otherwise, even though because of my education I KNEW it wouldn't last. You know how the story ends. Once Phil's rush of cards ended and deviation caught up with him he had to start paying for his education big time. We don't talk poker much anymore, mainly due to the frustration it causes me to listen to him continuing down the same path. Because he NEVER could let go of the paradigm that was first created in his mind the first time he played the game, the last time we spoke of poker he confided in me that his lifetime losses were close to $80,000.Because he refused to admit failure, his success doomed him to it.

So, who learned how to succeed, the person who failed or the person who succeeded?

Earlier I stated we learn more from failure than from success, and that there are several reasons why. The reasoning of why this is true is beyond this article's scope and ability for a web page, as books have been written about it. However, there is one reason I want to quickly discuss.

Our brain associates the emotional and physical responses to failure together giving us a very powerful desire not to fail again, or at least that is how we interpret that desire. I believe the desire is intended to remind us to avoid that specific situation. In other words, so that we LEARN from our failures. Our body and mind do this so we will dig into our process and find out what we did incorrectly and not do it again. If we succeed, then what will we really learn? What can we really learn without failing?

We shouldn't fear failure or make excuses. We should embrace it. Be thrilled when you fail! Not for the failure, of course. Be thrilled because failure and repeated failure is the surest way to long term success. There is record after record of this philosophy playing out over and over through history. Abraham Lincoln failed to get elected to office several times, and one needs to look no further back in history than our last President for a stellar example of repeated failure leading to success. Failure and perseverance is the surest path to success.

As you can easily see by now, success without failure is no real success at all. Be bold. Go out and unabashedly fail. Being afraid to fail is the quickest way to guarantee it. Failure is your key to succeed. Now that you know, go out and fail your way to success.