Failure: The Secret to Success

Hello, hello everyone. This is Claire Hayek and thanks for joining in on this live. Today we're going to be talking about failure, the secret to success. So as you all know me, I'm the founder and CEO of MSP Team Building and a team leadership expert. And I'm really excited to have with me here today, John Antonucci. He's a servant-minded leader with over 20 years of experience helping organizations develop resilient and people-centered cultures. Hi John! How's it going?

Hey Clare! It's going great. Thanks so much for having me today.

Yeah, I'm really excited about this. We've been trying to plan this out and here we are.

It's been a while between your schedule and mine. Mostly mine, I think. I think I put it off like 4 weeks and then, Yeah, you were traveling.

Yeah, I was traveling. And then, you know what, the way I put it and the way I always see it is that when it's the right time, things just happen. You have to trust the process, right? You can't push things. Uh, they will unfold when they need to unfold. I mean, you know, absolutely.

Who's here today because it's today and not any of those other days that needs this, this, uh, message? So that would—

Yeah, and I, I hate to do this, but it is the following day after the elections in the US.

Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know how this is unfolding. I'm gonna, you know, how this is related somehow, how this will help people somehow after that important day. You know, we can't ignore the fact that, you know, this made history yesterday with Trump winning. And anyway, I don't want to get into that. This is not a political show, but I just find it interesting. I never thought about it.

I didn't plan this.

It just happened. So we'll see what happens. But before we, we, we dive right in, I always like to ask you guys to let us know where you're joining us from today. Please do put it in the chat. This is an interactive session. We, we always encourage your opinion. I'll be, you know, sharing polls with you every now and again. So please do interact. This is, this is how it works. This is not a one-way conversation. And I would like to highlight that we have Connor here from our team at MSP Teaming that will be minding the chat. and moderating and doing an awesome job like he always does. No pressure, Connor. Uh, we love you.

Connor is great.

And, um, so please do, uh, do share where you're joining us from today. And, you know, without further ado, I think we should just, uh, uh, dive right in because we have 30 minutes and there's so much to talk about. Uh, John, my God, I mean, uh, even, you know, we're doing the sound check and going, oh my God, how are we gonna be able to talk about this in, in, in 5 to 10 minutes. There's so much to share. So, I'm gonna dive right in again. John, when we talk about failure, it's often seen as something to avoid. It's like, oh my God, I failed. You know, we're ashamed of it, right? Can you share with us a time when a professional setback reshaped your leadership style, reshaped your life? Why are you a servant-minded leader? And why do you talk about Failure. How did this come about? Please, all yours.

There's so many pieces. I'll add one thing. I think you're right. It's something we think is to be avoided, but it's also something that we try to hide because we know, we know we're not perfect. We know that we're going to fail. But instead of owning that, which I'll talk about in a second, we say, well, I'm going to pretend like that doesn't exist. And if, you know, we see it on social media probably more than anywhere, right? We only ever post or post, those picture-perfect posts. And so, yeah. So why am I talking about it? Well, I'm actually talking about it honestly by accident because I had written an article, I don't know, almost a year ago now, and somebody asked me to develop a workshop based off that article. And then it just became something that now everyone wants to talk about. And I think a lot of it is because when it comes to failure, you know, my little thing across the bottom says Servant-Minded Leadership Founder. But what it really should say is failure expert because I'm really good at failing. Um, I failed a lot.

Okay, I love how you— how comfortable you are with that, and this is why we're talking today. Yeah, yeah, tell us more, tell us more.

Yeah, so I mean, I think back history would be that there was a time in my life where I was not comfortable talking about that. In fact, I was deeply entrenched in this idea of putting on that perfect facade, so much to the effect that I've shared this on a few— with a few people Most of my time in high school, I cheated on every test.

Wow.

Just so I looked like I was smarter than I actually was. And that character flaw that might seem like, oh, you know, you were a kid, whatever— well, it manifested in a lot of different ways. And so when people see me now, they see a speaker, they see a consultant, they see a coach, they see a trainer, they see whatever they see. And I had someone yesterday that I was talking to and said, I never would have known that about you. And they said that right after I was very authentic and vulnerable with them and disclosed that— you talked about the election that happened yesterday, and we did, we had an election, and I wasn't allowed to vote.

And—

And the reason I'm not allowed to vote is because when I was 19, I failed in epic proportion, and that sent me to prison. And I'm happy to share that story maybe at another time where, where we have more time and not just 30 minutes, and we're not— but, but it was a massive failure that exposed real character flaws in my life. And without that massive failure, which I have no excuse for— I, I should have known better in every regard, right?

Right.

But without that, I would not have grown into the person that now gets to sit here and talk with you today. And so that kind of brought down all of that superficial nonsense that I had built up that perfect facade that I had at one time in my life. And all of my perceived successes and all of my lie— all my successes came crumbling and all of my lies got exposed.

Mm-hmm.

And it was kind of just me laid bare going, well, this isn't a good look. And I had a choice. I had a choice. I could either continue on the same path or I could learn from it. And that's really the message that I know we'll get into as we go through this time together today, is that Failure is not final if we learn from it.

Yes. And I love this. Obviously, this is a very sensitive subject. And I do applaud your courage to discuss this and actually turn this experience that was massive for you in your life into something to serve others. And now, obviously, I see the connection with your title and how you put it is that This happened in your life for a reason. And we can choose to ignore it and be bitter and be upset about it and play the victim. Or we can own it and change our mindset and see it as, you know, Tony Robbins talks about this all the time. Life happens for you and not to you, right? So, if we change our mindset and see our failures as something happening for us, like, why is this happening right now?

Yeah.

Why? Why me? Why now? You know, then you kind of detach yourself from it and and and go okay. How can I turn this around? What can I take out of it? And how can I, you know, create something positive out of it? And how can I help other people in the process? So I again, I applaud your courage and I applaud the initiative. And when we first met in Greenville, actually, it was just like a. When you shared your story with me, it was a big shock. I was like, what?

What?

Whoa, whoa, hold on a sec. And if anybody knows me well, I am such a non-judgmental person. That didn't change anything. It was actually more interesting for me. It's like, oh my God, tell me more. Because I found that fascinating that you were able to turn your life around and have that big impact on people. So again, kudos to you. Let's share a little question here with our attendees. So, do you feel comfortable discussing failure within your team, at your job, in your day-to-day, even in your personal life? Drop a yes or a no in the chat. We really want to hear from you. And I will be sharing the answers live on screen. And again, I want to remind you that if you have any questions for us, basically, we're gonna tackle this on later on with our little 30-minute— oh my God, we need to get going here. But yes, please do put it in the chat. if you feel comfortable, yes or no. And we'll get back to the chat shortly. All right. So moving along here, John. So what are— basically, I just want to know like, what are some practical steps? Because we want to add value to our listeners. We want to see, okay, great. Now we understand what failure can do and how we can turn it around. But what are some steps and tools you can share with us that leaders can take to create a culture where failure is accepted, is viewed as something we learn Yeah, I think culture can't be affected until mindset is.

And so the first thing that has to be dealt with is the mindset of what does— what is failure? What does it mean? We have to stop seeing failure as the end. And I also think that we have to start looking— when we see something happening as failure, we have to recognize that the more we deny it or hide it, the more we're going to see it happen again. The worse it becomes.

Right.

That, that, that's a critical thing. And I, when I do the workshop, I talk about Nikola, the company. So we all know Tesla, the company. We all know how, you know, they, the electric car. What many people don't know is there was another company that was started right about the same time as Tesla was called Nikola, named after the first name of Nikola Tesla.

Yes. Right.

They were a hydrogen, also an alt fuel, alt fuel vehicle company. And when Tesla started getting big, they went, oh shoot, we, we need to produce something, uh, to, to stay relevant in the market. And so they did a— they shot a video of their prototype and they released it. And if you look at the stock chart, the stock chart says everything. The stock was hovering at around $300 a share when they released their video. It shot all the way up to about $2,000 a share.

Right.

And then it was revealed that they would actually failed and that the video they released was them rolling their truck down a hill.

Oh my God. Okay.

And if you tried to buy that stock today, the company does still exist. That $300 stock that went to $2,000 is now sitting at about $5 a share.

Crazy.

And so the exponential impact. So we have to get that mindset that we, you know, oh, hide failure, diminish failure. We don't talk about failure. We're all about success. No, failure is going to get worse if we don't acknowledge it. And that mindset allows us to implement practical strategies. And the first thing starts with the leader. talking about their failures first. If the leader won't acknowledge failure, the team never will. The team will always be scared because there will be a culture of perfection instead of a culture of growth. Practical strategy number 1 is any little time that you as a leader, I as a leader, have even erred just a little bit, be quick to come out to the team. Hey guys, here's what happened. Here's where I was wrong. Here's what we can learn from this. I just wanted to share that with everybody. And that creates that vulnerability. That's the word I'm looking for. That vulnerability creates an environment. And then when you start asking people, and I do this every week with, with my team, where I say, hey, what could you have done better this week? Now they don't have to be scared.

Yeah.

Because I've just told them what I could do better this week. And it's no longer, oh, John is perfect, and he's going to judge me for what I didn't do. No, John is in the growth process with us. Claire is in the growth process with us. Conor, and I can go down kind of the list of names that I see on the side of my screen. We're in this growth process together. So, I would say the first thing is adjust the mindset so that the strategies can be implemented. And strategy number 1 is be quick to admit it as a leader and then solicit it in a supportive environment from your team.

Yeah, yeah. And it's quite interesting here, some of the comments in the chat about this that some are comfortable, some I mean, we got here. I just— Rosalind shared this earlier on as you were explaining this, John, that yes, failure is not the end. That's the right attitude. And Conor's like, you know, he's not always comfortable with it. And I don't want to speak for Conor here, but, you know, we work together and he is hard on himself. And quite often, him and I are having the conversation like, it's fine. Don't worry about it. You know, it's okay. You know. What can we learn from this? How can we move on? And the idea is not to do it over and over again. If we do another mistake that's similar, okay, we'll clean it up and we learn and we keep going. It's also so the leader can also foster that environment where it's a safe space. And you feel that you can trust your teammates. You can trust people around you. But also, I think we need to also trust ourselves and kind of fight our demons, inner demons, where we're going, I cannot fail. That's a sign of weakness. That's a sign of I'm not good enough, etc. And remember that we're humans and this is how we learn. Actually, it's like if I've never failed, maybe I'm not taking risk in my life and maybe I'm not growing. I turn the—

Yeah.

Switch the narrative, right?

I, I have— there's, there's a, there's a whole slide in my— when I do the workshop, and it says literally nothing else other than, I don't trust leaders who haven't failed.

Right? I mean, you know, or they don't— that don't talk about it.

Yeah, because if you haven't failed, there's only one of two options, in my opinion. Either you're lying, which is probably the real option, right? You're probably lying because you— but the other one is there too. You mentioned you haven't really done anything, and I call those knights in shining armor. And I know from like the romantic perspective, oh, he's my knight in shining armor. But if you think about it, knights, soldiers that went out to battle and actually accomplished something, yeah, didn't have shining armor. Their armor was dinged and grassed— grassy and bloody and scratched and scuffed and missing. And, and that's the armor that shows I went out and I conquered something and I accomplished something. The shining armor is the guy that stands at the gate all day and does nothing. Yeah.

Right. Love the analogy. Love the image. Yeah.

And so, that's why I don't trust you if you're a leader, if you haven't failed. Because either you're lying to me or you haven't actually done anything to demonstrate leadership capacity.

Yeah. And it's boring.

It's boring.

I had to throw in a joke there. I mean, just tell me something exciting here. You're so perfect, really? I was never really attracted to perfect people because I feel that first, it doesn't exist. And I'm far from being perfect. And this is human beings. This is what makes us human, right?

Yeah.

But that's a whole different conversation. So, let's bring it back here to our audience. So, do share it in the chat. So, what is your biggest takeaway from failure? Resilience, innovation, better decision-making, or anything else you want to share with us? Please again, put it in the chat and we'll be highlighting your answer as we keep going. because still a lot to talk about here with John. So, as far as resilience, we always talk about resilience, how it's crucial for leaders, for teams, especially in our new kind of future-ready reality with what's happening with AI. There's a lot of changes. I mean, the whole world is upside down.

Yeah.

And this affects our day-to-day in every single way. So, can you tell us, John, how can failure be used to actually strengthen that resilience and that, I guess, mental agility when it comes to your team or when it comes to leaders themselves or anybody for that matter that is trying to kind of get up and move on here? So, how is failure related to resilience and mental agility? Yeah.

Well, if, if you're trying to maintain that perfect image, it's very fragile. Uh, they— there's the old saying that when you're on a pedestal, or the further up you are, the further you fall, right? Those different kind of metaphors that we talk about. Um, and so what failure does is when you embrace failure, not as, oh, I want to go out and fail necessarily, but rather I want the benefits of failure. The reality is, if, if you tell me, Claire, ah, you did such a great job on our podcast, I don't learn anything from that. I don't get better from that. In fact, there's an individual that's, that's watching today. Uh, I think I saw him jump on the chat earlier. Uh, his name's Patrick Kagan, and if anyone doesn't know Patrick Kagan, I highly recommend you go look him up on LinkedIn. Colleague of mine, a great friend. I got the chance to actually meet him in person finally last month, and he's here. I asked him, I said, hey Patrick, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to be as nitpicky as you possibly can about how I am Mm-hmm. In this LinkedIn Live. And so his, his— oops, sorry, I wouldn't say his whole reason that he's here, but like the— he's going to be sitting there and I'm expecting, and he'll give me a page of, hey, you know what, when you lean back, that the lighting wasn't good and your voice kept changing. And by the way, did you have broccoli in your teeth? You know, and it's not like, oh my gosh, I want to fail, but what kind of resilience does that give me? Well, there's 2 things. Number one, it helps me grow. But number two, it helps me recognize that It's not the end of the world. I can speak, if I can, I'll speak to the Connor that you mentioned. Connor, you know, when we get down on ourselves because of our failure, it's maybe because we have that image of ourselves that is pristine.

Mm-hmm.

And so I would encourage Connor, and I haven't met him personally, but I've seen him across the screen, of course. And so Connor, you're doing a great job. But the, even the beauty is, is that just like me and just like Claire, you can get better. And failure is how you learn that, and that develops that resilience in an individual that says, wait a minute, I failed horribly, and guess what? The sun came up again this morning. Guess what? The world is still great, and, and I can learn from this, and next time I can make an improvement, and then I'll fail again, but I'll make another improvement and another and another. And so for me, it has been so empowering to just be willing to say, That was my fault.

Mm-hmm.

You can— if you, if you're looking for someone to blame, you can go and point that at me. That's okay. Uh, here's what I've learned from it. Here's how we're going to move forward from it. And I would invite anybody who wants to, to learn with me from it. But if you're just looking for someone to blame, I'll take it because I've got nothing to lose, right? And that was one of the most powerful things that happened because I really had nothing to lose there for a while. I was in prison for over a decade and I had nothing to lose. And so it was like, all right, And I was able to learn to take ownership, and that gave me such an empowered position for growth because I was able to work on character flaws. And then you mentioned it, I didn't say anything, but that gave me a platform where during my time of incarceration I was able to help thousands of other people through building some programs that positively impacted their lives and allowed them to return to the communities as contributing citizens. And that would never have been possible if I had been a statistic that spent all of my time trying to hide my failure instead of owning it and growing from it. And that just that in its own self does, in my opinion, equal resilience.

Yeah. I mean, I bet it is. And I think you put it in a very good way when you talked about the sun. Here's the sun is back out again. And I mean, so many songs have been written about this. And it's not something to belittle because sometimes I tell people and when I speak to clients or just friends and I remind myself as well because I mean, I go through these moments as well. It's so dark. It's so dark right above my head. There's this dark cloud with rain and heavy rain and you're going, oh my God, what is going on? You're drowning. You're drowning.

Yeah.

Into the whole, why though? Why me? And all that. And then what really is hard about that is to remember to dig deep in your neurons and your intention and find, and find that intention and that strength. And this is resilience for me. That's how I see it and go, okay, here I am. I'm going to zoom out of the situation. I'm here now looking at myself. feeling really bad with the cloud and the rain. And I'm gonna go, okay, it's happening. It's happening and it's gonna rain. But you know what's gonna happen? 5 minutes from now, I'm done. I'm done with rain. I have the power to go, go away.

That's right.

You have the power just to push it on the side and force that sun to come out. It's all about you deciding. And this is kind of neuroplasticity and the ability to be able to change our state. So, so many tools out there to work that. Like put on some music. Fake it, right? The fake it till you make it. Fake the happiness. Start smiling and laughing as well as crying if you want. But it actually just changes your mood. Go for a walk. Go for a jog. Do some squats. Do something. But that will help you push that cloud away. But that is crucial. That is so hard to do sometimes. We don't remember it.

It is. You know, so yeah, and I think, I think one of the things that we— I would encourage people with as well is that you actually have the power not only to change yourself— you're— that's absolutely correct, and I love that you brought that out— but true ownership actually, to at least a certain degree, can control the way others perceive or feel about it as well, right?

Yeah.

If you think about it, just think of somebody in your life at some point who you know messed up in some way, and they tried to downplay it, or they tried to ignore it, or maybe they even tried to lie about it. And, and you were just like, what are you doing? Like, and, and you really just wanted to slap them upside the head and be like, why? We all watched you do that. Why are you lying to us now? Right? But then contrast that with maybe somebody in your life that did something and then maybe, you know, kind of beat themselves up about it a little bit. Oh my goodness, I— that's totally my fault. I'm so sorry, guys. That is 100% on me. And what do you naturally do to that person? You console them.

Absolutely.

It's okay. No, it's fine. We're going to learn. And so when you come out, maybe someone's sitting there watching this and they're thinking, you don't understand, John, if I tell people it's my fault, I'm gonna get fired. Maybe. I mean, I can't tell you that you're not, but I can tell you that it's actually harder to fire you if you take the ownership than if you try to pretend like you're not at fault. If you walk out and you're literally on the floor with your— all your colleagues, guys, that was my fault. I'm so sorry. I, I will work. I'm gonna That's 100% on me. And now, they're just like, oh no, no, no, it's fine. It's fine. It's so much harder to get mad at a person.

Yes. And you know what? I think that's such a good example, John. Thank you for sharing that. And just saying that, just taking ownership, but as well as reaching out and say, look, it's something recurring and I'm struggling with this vulnerability. You said it. I'm not reinventing anything here. And say, I'm gonna need your help. So next time, help me kind of rewire my brain not to do that same thing because apparently, it's a pattern. I've been doing this for a long time and I'm having trouble changing. But I know I can. So, if you help me, how can you fire that person for God's sake? Somebody that is like, I want that person on my team.

Yeah.

Please, I'm gonna give you a promotion for God's sake. So, that is huge. And you know what? You don't want to be in a company, an organization that doesn't have a safe space and that doesn't help you grow. And then, you have a decision to make if it goes down to this. So, fear is never the answer. Let's put it this way. But let me just throw that question here. I mean, I've had it on the screen here for a little bit. So, which skill do you believe failure has helped you develop the most? Patience, problem-solving, adaptability, communication. Of course, anything else you want to share, we want to hear from you. And we're already at our Q&A session. I'm just going to share Excuse me. Something in my throat. It bugs me. But anyhow, let's go to the chat and see what our dear participants here and attendees have shared. We have Connor. Connor, communication. Yes, definitely, Connor. Thanks for sharing. And anybody else here? I mean, I have so many comments here that I shared all along. And I think a lot of our attendees do agree when it came to resilience, when it came to growth and how failure can help us do that. So, I mean, John, I guess any last words you want to share with, you know, any advice you want to share with our attendees and whoever's watching the replay here as far as failure and, you know, something to part with. Um, before I go on about what's happening next week.

So sure, I, I would say go back to the title, back to where we started. We started— the title that we gave this was Failure: The Secret to Success. It really is. It is through failure that we learn. It is through failure that we grow. It is through failure that we really are able to become all we can be. And so if you want to become successful, this is not original to me, Um, but the— there's the old quote, if you want to succeed, double your rate of failure.

Hmm.

And that, I think, has to be our mentality. And it's been a joy being with you, as well as sharing this message in other contexts, to just say, guys, listen, I am living proof you can fail royally. It does not mean that things are over. And in fact, it very well may mean that things are better than they ever were.

I love how we just— it's a total shift of how you look at things. And I think this is where brilliant people shine, is their ability to do that. And I mean, the secret here is that we all can do that. We just have to decide. We just have to decide to be conscious of our reactions and change them. I always bring in the whole neuro leadership and neuroplasticity and our ability to transform. Absolutely. Our ways, right? So, here you go. So, I put a little message here at the bottom of the screen. If you want to know more info about this amazing conference that John basically offers, please do put the word failure to success, actually 3 words, in the chat or under comments. Even if you put it post live, we will see it. And I wanted to share also that we actually have— just reach out to me. I'm going to tell you about a special offer we have on this specific conference that is going on right now. And this will really help you and get you all set up for the new year. So, do put that in the chat and we'll reach out with a bit more information on how you can get John to come to the office or do a virtual conference on this for you and your team. And trust me, you will not be disappointed. He is brilliant. And I'm very, very happy to call you a friend. And I literally met you earlier this year. So it's great to have you, John. And before we wrap up here, I just wanted to share with everyone that we do have a webinar happening actually tomorrow. It's crazy. Time flies. And basically, the webinar is about neuroleadership. and AI Productivity. It is free. It's for an hour and a half. And we're going to be sharing tools and tips on how to leverage neuroscience and improve your leadership. And it really meets what John, what you're talking about here, but more focused on neuroleadership and transformation to really be ready for leadership in 2025 and beyond because there's so much. Everything's changing at such a rapid rate and you need to be ready for it.

Yeah.

So, this is a great webinar and we'll also touch on AI. And how we can leverage AI and not to replace our jobs. Okay, that's not what we're doing here. Just keep an open mind and AI could really help you shave off 3 to 5 hours a week. Trust me, it works for me and it works for so many people I know. So, scan the code. I will also share the link in the comment. Please do register even if you can't make it. It's tomorrow at 1 PM EST. If you can't make it, if you register, you'll get the replay. If you don't register, You don't. Simple. And moving on, next Wednesday, we're going to have a special guest and we're going to talk about communication across borders and how they can be seamless. And she's— Cindy's going to be— Cindy Riding will be sharing her expertise on that great subject. So, we're looking forward to it. And I think I'm done pretty much. John, again, I am so excited to have you. with us and of sharing basically your knowledge with us. And I hope to see you soon. And please do keep in touch. And again, people, if you want to know, learn more about this conference, do type failure to success in the chat and we'll reach out with this special offer that John is so generously sharing with us here at MSP Team Building. Thanks again, everyone. Have a wonderful afternoon.