Fail Your Way To Success

I came across this quote by a gentleman named John Green, and he said, what's the point of being alive if you don't try to do something remarkable? And I think that in order to do something remarkable, you also have to become someone remarkable. You know, remarkable people do remarkable things. And, you know, so there's this kind of battle between what comes first. You know, do you build yourself into somebody remarkable, or is it the process of pursuing something remarkable that chisels you into a remarkable being? And one of the things that I've learned over the years by talking to really incredibly successful people, fulfilled people. You know, when I go on podcasts and speak on stages in front of thousands of people, or speak on a podcast with millions of people tuning into it, and people ask me, what's made you successful in life? My answer is almost always the same, which is, I failed my way there. I failed my way there. There's something motivating about failure rather than being afraid of it, which I was for a long time. You know, I was afraid to fail. I was afraid to fail with women, in relationships, with money, in business, with my dreams. What I actually really wanted to accomplish, I was terrified of failing. And, and what I've noticed over the years is that we can be crippled by the fear of failure. We cannot take action because we're afraid of some outcome that we've created in our head, rather than being motivated by the sense that when you fail, you're going to learn. When you fail, it shows you that you are on a path, you're moving in a direction towards something, and that there's something that you ultimately need to learn. And, you know, I would say that for a long time I was a pretty bad loser. I hated losing. And today I still don't like losing. When people in my space, in my industry are doing better than me, that motivates me. Not because I'm comparing myself to them, but because there's a part of me that knows unequivocally that I can do better. And this isn't some hustle culture bullshit mantra of like, you know, outwork the other guy, but there is truth in that, you know, need to learn from the failures that you've experienced on a day to day basis. Maybe the way that you criticize yourself is a failure and you need to learn from it. Maybe the way that you're setting up your business in terms of the operations of it is failing and you need to learn from it. I remember hearing this great quote that said, the most organized organizations win and When I heard that, something shifted in me because I realized that I'm not naturally an organized person. And so I had been failing my employees, my customers, the people that are a part of my organization, my this sort of like team and tribe and family that I have built, the community that I've built within my company. I was failing people because I wasn't organized. And when I heard that, I realized that in order to be exceptional, in order to do something remarkable, you have to be willing to see where you are failing right now, where you're failing right fucking now. And that's the most important thing because most of us get caught. Where I got caught was looking into the future, where might I fail? And I would live in this fantasy failure land that so many people get caught in. Fantasy failure land. What could go wrong? What might happen? How might I screw up, what might go wrong that I can't account for. And we make up all these fantasies of what could go wrong rather than seeing what, where am I feeling right now in my life that I could execute on, that I could change, that I can alter, that I can grow, that I can adapt, that I can learn from that, need some innovation and ingenuity. And what I've noticed over the years is that the most successful people that I've talked to at events, on my podcast, just through networking and friends, the most successful people that I've come across, they move themselves out of, of this fantasy land of failure, of creating what could go wrong, and they move themselves into what's not working well right now. And what do I need to do about it? Who do I need to become in order to rectify this failure? And it's in that whether you want to look at it as something that shaming yourself is probably not going to help and you know, self deprecating is probably not going to help. When you see these things that aren't working well in your life, but being able to look at them and genuinely say, can I allow this to push me forward? Can I allow this to become the kind of fuel, the connective tissue that is going to allow me to become a more complete version of myself, to do the remarkable things that I have set out to do, whether that's to have a remarkable relationship, to be a remarkable parent, to be a remarkable employee or business owner or entrepreneur or investor or whatever it is that you want to be remarkable at. If you want to be remarkable, you have to be willing to stop worrying about the failures that might happen in the future and to start seeing right now what is happening that you could improve, that you could shift, that you could learn from. Because we all have failures in our life right now. A failure of communication failure, failure of organization, a failure of confidence that we can begin to work on, that we can begin to grow and expand in that will radically change the way that we behave, the way that we interact, the way that we build, the way that we contribute, earn, grow, et cetera. So look at your life right now and ask yourself the question from a humble place, not from a place of like, oh, I'm going to use this to shame myself, I'm going to use this to shit on myself and self deprecate and, and have it be more evidence of what I'm already doing it wrong. Set the intention that you're gonna look at what's not working in your life right now as a means of seeing the failures that are occurring right now that you can actually do something about. Cause here's the thing about the fantasy of failure. You can't do a damn thing about it. And for most people, they spend so much time, effort, energy, money trying to ensure that that failure, that fantasy of a failure is never going to happen. And we waste time, we waste energy, we waste money. When what we could be doing is looking at what's not working right now, looking at the failures that are happening right now, and being honest and being humble and being compassionate and saying, you know what, this is a hard one to come into contact with. This is a hard one for me to really own and, and really admit to. But here it is, I can admit to it, I'm gonna start working on it. And for me, that big admission was that I was woefully disorganized. I hadn't organized my company, I hadn't organized the people that worked for me, I hadn't organized the community aspect of it. There was no real organizational processes that were in place. There was no structure. It was kind of like freeballing it. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs do this, A lot of creative creatives do this. And so for me, once I realized this, this quote of the most organizations, the most organized organizations win, that stuck with me. It hit me to my core because I realized, ah, that's where I'm failing and that's what I can do something about. And it's liberating. You know, it's liberating when we can admit to the current failures rather than getting stuck trying to circumvent the, the pretend fantasy failures that might happen down the road. So look at where you're failing in your life right now. Look at those failures from a place of intentionality, from a place of compassion, from a place of strength and grit and determination. And really be honest about what's not working well in your business, in your finances, in your relationship. And then ask yourself, what am I willing to do about this? Who am I willing to become because of this? Journal it, write it out, put it into a voice memo, make a declaration, send it to an accountability partner, to a friend, to a mentor, to somebody that you work with and say, here's what I've come, here's what I've discovered and here's what I'm willing to do about it. So comment below. Let me know what you resonated with about this video. Feel free to share it. Don't forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel so that you can get more content like this when I drop it. And until next week, this is Conor Beaton signing off.