So what exactly is it to “fail forward”?

Failing forward is one of the most important skill sets an athlete should have in their arsenal. It’s the mental component that many overlook, and often under-rated. The expression “fail forward” is used to describe a situation or event that might be less than ideal and learning to move forward (figuratively and literally) toward the attainment of your goal(s) regardless of the temporary set back.

In short, it means to not give up when the going gets tough.

Here a stellar video on failure and overcoming it. (Time 6:13 minutes)

Here is the audio, I listen to these types of audio when I am working and training:

[Download the audio MP3] -Just right click and Save-Link As

On your journey of optimum health and well-being, you will encounter the nasty dreaded roadblocks. What really matters is your attitude and how you process and deal with it. Your attitude determines your altitude and how high you will fly.

In my own personal journey, I have been incredibly honored and grateful to interview, some of the best of the best in sports. They are considered the “world’s elite” in what they do.

What I have, thus far, come to learn is that no one is immune to the challenges of life. Life is fair in the  sense that it does not discriminate on who has problems and who does not.

All the great athletes “fail” or fall short of their intended goal(s) but they don’t dwell on it forever. Instead they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, chalk it up to experience, and note down on the mental stencil of their mind what they learned. It’s so important, what you do after that and how you interpret that situation that truly matters. For me, it’s nearly impossible for me to fail, because if I learn just one thing from a supposed “bad” experience, than for me it was not a failure.

Success is different for everyone, and the opposite also holds true.

Your mental state, and what and how you interpret it is the real difference. In essence it is crucial to be aware of what you are focusing on at any given moment.

It reminds me of the story of a reporter who talked to three construction workers pouring concrete at a building site. “What are you doing?” The reporter asked the first worker. “I’m earning a pay check,” he grumbled.

The reporter asked the same question of a second laborer, who looked over his shoulder and said, “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m pouring concrete.”

Then he noticed a third man who was smiling and was whistling as he worked. “What are you doing?” the reporter asked the third worker.

He stopped what he was doing and said excitedly, “I’m building a shelter for the homeless.” He wiped his hands clean on a rag and then pointed, “Look, over there is where the kitchen will be. And that over there is the women’s dormitory. This here . .

Each man was doing the same job but only the third was motivated by a larger vision. The work he did was fulfilling a dream and added value to all his efforts. By managing his state the third worker was able to see the enormous opportunity and potential to contribute to something larger than himself and thereby creating a labor of love in the work he did.

Focusing on the Big Picture & RAS

When you have a larger picture of what you want to accomplish, the small obstacles or even large obstacles only appear to be part of the process.

It’s the journey of your life, that makes it so fun.

When you have big picture, and you are focused on the goal(s) no one or no thing can stop you. Sure, you will encounter challenges, but that’s part of it. Life is constantly changing. And as things change, you need to comfortable being uncomfortable.

Each of us has our own private butler. It’s called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). And like any good butler, what you ask of it, it will seek out and find.

Your RAS is identical.

The reticular activating system (RAS) is a part of the mammalian brain located in the brain stem.

A loose network of neurons and neural fibers running through the brain stem make up the reticular activating system

The RAS is responsible for many functions in the human body such as:  sleep, walking, sex, eating, and elimination and also what we focus on.

What you put your attention on, is in good part controlled by the RAS.

The greatest part about the RAS is that it is, indeed, your own private butler. When you set a goal, you literally send a message to your RAS that this is what you want, and like any good butler, it works on its fulfillment.

Affirmations and visualization are two other fantastic forms of consciously controlling your RAS to work on achieving what you desire. Your reticular activating system cannot distinguish between ‘real events’ and ‘synthetic’ reality.

When you have a supposed “failure” or temporary set back as I like to call them, what you are choosing to focus on at that very moment is vital to you failing forward or not.

Breaking Through The Breakdowns

What you resist will persist. This is a statement that eventually became a running theme throughout my personal and professional life. Ironically many of the things that I resisted the most ended up having the greatest reward. Each of our lives is an expression of who we are. Our destiny is determined by our choices.

What we choose to focus on is a vital component toward planting seeds for an enriching life, and helping to, as Albert Einstein once said, “invent the life you want to live.”

In the past I have resisted many of the gifts that were graciously given to me. I wanted to carve out my own path. I wanted a challenge. I felt if something was given to me it was too easy. As you can see I was standing in the way of my own success. The things I resisted the most would often be transformed through my own internal dialogue into breakdowns in my life. It was a classic case of focusing the majority of my time on the problem and not on the solution. It’s often said that if you ask better questions you’ll get better answers.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens;
but often we look so long at the closed door that we
do not see the one which has been opened for us.
-Helen Keller

Believe it or not, awareness can be curative. So if you find yourself effectively limiting your own ability to see the big picture stop and ask yourself what is missing. It’s easy to focus on what is wrong. It’s more fun to focus on what’s missing. When you focus on what’s missing in your business you essentially let go of the
unnecessary guilt, blame and frustration. You transform breakdowns into breakthroughs.

While attending a group workshop I learned the three reasons we have “breakdowns” or failures or set backs, or whatever word or phrase you wish to call it. The three reasons are:

1) Unfulfilled expectations, you want something or someone to happen and it does not.

2) Thwarted intention, you want to do something and you are unable to.

3) Undelivered communication, you want to say something and you are unable to.

That’s it. If you think about all your supposed frustrations, failures, setbacks, upsets, or breakdowns, just about all of them can be attributed to either one or a combination of the three above mentioned items.

So instead of seeing whatever is happening or not happening as a “loss” turn it around into a win.

Breakthrough the supposed breakdown, and challenging the thought process that what you are experiencing is a loss. See it as a win. There has got to be something you can learn from it, or try to see something humorous about it.

And remember winter does not last forever. Darkness always follows light. And you too will shine.

Here’s a little motivation:

If you find yourself losing sight of the big picture take heart you are in good company. The following are examples of quotes from the book, The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation, by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky. These experts fell victim to their own inability to see beyond their own limited perspective:

I think there’s a world market for about five computers.
-Thomas J. Watson, Chairman of IBM 1943

There’s no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.
-Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment Corp. 1977

We don’t like their sound.Groups of  the guitars are on their way out.
-Decca Recording Company Executive, turning down the Beatles in 1962

The phonograph… is not of any commercial value.
-Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the phonograph 1880

One final thing worth noting when it comes to this thing called failure, everyone has gone through it. You don’t believe me? Well check out this notable people, you might have heard of a few:

Henry Ford: While Ford is today known for his innovative assembly line and American-made cars, he wasn’t an instant success. In fact, his early businesses failed and left him broke five time before he founded the successful Ford Motor Company.

Soichiro Honda: The billion-dollar business that is Honda began with a series of failures and fortunate turns of luck. Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation for a job after interviewing for a job as an engineer, leaving him jobless for quite some time. He started making scooters of his own at home, and spurred on by his neighbors, finally started his own business.

Harland David Sanders: Perhaps better known as Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, Sanders had a hard time selling his chicken at first. In fact, his famous secret chicken recipe was rejected 1,009 times before a restaurant accepted it.

Walt Disney: Today Disney rakes in billions from merchandise, movies and theme parks around the world, but Walt Disney himself had a bit of a rough start. He was fired by a newspaper editor because, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” After that, Disney started a number of businesses that didn’t last too long and ended with bankruptcy and failure. He kept plugging along, however, and eventually found a recipe for success that worked.

Albert Einstein: Most of us take Einstein’s name as synonymous with genius, but he didn’t always show such promise. Einstein did not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven, causing his teachers and parents to think he was mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social. Eventually, he was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. It might have taken him a bit longer, but most people would agree that he caught on pretty well in the end, winning the Nobel Prize and changing the face of modern physics.

Orville and Wilbur Wright: These brothers battled depression and family illness before starting the bicycle shop that would lead them to experimenting with flight. After numerous attempts at creating flying machines, several years of hard work, and tons of failed prototypes, the brothers finally created a plane that could get airborne and stay there.

Stephen King: The first book by this author, the iconic thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time.

Michael Jordan: Most people wouldn’t believe that a man often lauded as the best basketball player of all time was actually cut from his high school basketball team. Luckily, Jordan didn’t let this setback stop him from playing the game and he has stated, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Like all 10 year old boys, he loves video games but hates school, or more so, doing his homework and studying for exams.

He would rather go to the dentist and have his teeth cleaned than have to do his homework.

For him, the mere word, “study” brings up all sorts of bad and negative images. It’s as though studying is his version of a four letter bad word.

I thought, I would explore this further to examine just how he came to link that up in his head.

I remember, an old cassette audio track of Tony Robbins, entitled, Power Talk.

In the audio, Tony explains a consultation he did with a young boy who was labeled learning disabled.

The young boy, met Tony for a  one to one session, and brought with him his school record, which was, to say the least, rather large.

Tony, briefly looked over the school record, while glancing back at the young boy.

What he noticed, was that as soon as Tony examined the school record, the boy’s composure and attitude quickly changed from pleasant and alive to one of being depressed and hunched over.

Tony took the record, tore it up, and said, “This is horse wash!”

The boy was quite startled by this.

And Tony, continued to say, ” I know you are much smarter than what this school record says, I even bet there are some things that you are pretty good at, right?”

The boy, leaned in, and said, “Well, yeah, I like surfing.”

Tony then asked, “Tell me about surfing and what would you do if you created a surfing school?”

The boy immediately changed his entire demeanor and began to get really excited about the idea of a surfing school.

What Tony had done was pure genius.

He had connected a word that the boy liked, surfing, with the word school, one that was not so high on his lists of favorites.

Now every time the boy talked about school he got really excited.

The end result, this boy’s “learning disabilities,” quickly vanished and the boy began to get high marks at school.

Regressing back to the original story about my son.

Having remembered this story, and knowing that my son’s all time favorite thing in the world to do is to play video games, and that the absolute worst thing in the world for him to do is to study, I proceeded along the same lines as Tony.

I asked my son about video games and how did he learn to get so good?

He told me all the moves and maneuvers he had to learn.

I then asked him, how did you study all those moves?

He told me that he watched others that were better than him and practiced.

I asked, “So you studied all of those players that were better than you, and you learned how to be the best?”

He said ,”Yeah, of course.”

I asked, “And what would you think if you had a video game school, where each class was a different video game and you were the professor, what would you have to do?”

He got all excited, and proceeded to shared all of his ideas.

I then, asked, “So you studied and learned to become great? Isn’t that what you sort of do in school now?”

His eyes had a confused look, which is a great thing, it means, that he has a new perspective, the tiny little circuits in his brain, were now firing and re-wiring differently, sort of like the proverbial light bulb over the head, kind of moment.

And then he told me, “Oh I see, studying is a good thing? Right?”

I said, “Yes studying and learning are both good things?”

In conclusion, the way to mastery can be found in this short story that I have shared with you.

Lessons to Mastery:

1) Find something that you are passionate about. i.e. Surfing, Video Games, etc.

2) Find those that are better than you.

3) Imitate, study, and learn & practice how those that are better than you, do what they do. For example: physiology, mental syntax, beliefs.

4) Keep practicing and learning, until you get to where you want to be, and then after that, keep practicing and learning even more. The life of mastery is not a destination, it is found in the journey.

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.
Albert Einstein