ITL224: How to Use Your Failure as a Stepping Stone to Success

On this week’s episode, I answer a listener question on why we push people to succeed when failing is what leads to learning.

 

Success is your destination, but we should also create value from every part of the journey.

• My smart-aleck answer is that you push people to succeed because you don’t want to push them to fail.
• What we want to do is reach a destination defined by a successful conclusion to something.

 

However, there is value in getting lost along the way.

• There is no weaker leader than someone who has only succeeded in certain things and has gotten to where they are relatively easily.
• A strong version of leadership enables a person to say, “I know how you feel because this happened to me, and this is what came about because of that.”
• The ultimate goal isn’t to focus on the failure but to make sense of it and gain proper perspective.

 

Most people travel through their lives along the path of least resistance.

• There is a push for success that can make people fearful of any kind of failure.
• A balanced approach is to let people know that anything worth doing is worth struggling to get better at.
• In our culture, to struggle at something reveals weakness when it should be seen as honorable.

 

Tune in to learn the difference between how our culture and some Asian cultures approach struggle while learning in the classroom, and how struggle can really open up more paths in life.

 

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