Four Tips to Overcome Failure

I like to listen to sports radio in the mornings. The other day while listening to The Dan Patrick Show, Dan Patrick, the show host shared a story about Carl Lewis.  For those of you who don’t know or remember him, Lewis is one of the greatest American Olympians of all time.  He was a sprinter during the 1980’s and over the course of his career won nine Olympic gold medals and one Olympic silver medal.

Failing Big

After retiring from Olympic competition, he made news by launching a music career. I was surprised at this news. I had no idea he was a singer. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. In one of his first public performances, he sang the national anthem at a basketball game. It was a rough outing. People made fun of him and this one moment that many might call a failure made him the butt of jokes for a while after it happened.

Flash back to the present day. Well, at a least a couple weeks ago. Patrick recounted the story of an interview he did with Lewis while he was still working for ESPN. This is not Patrick’s exact words, but his story went something along the lines of: As they were getting set up for the interview, Lewis’s brother was there. Patrick began talking to his brother and brought up the national anthem. More along the lines of wondering if Lewis still gets asked about it.

His brother told him that he did and that he really couldn’t understand why. By the time of this interview, a significant amount of time had passed since the failed national anthem attempt. Lewis’s brother wasn’t upset but was more curious as to why people still wanted to bring it up after so many years, especially when Lewis had accomplished so many other incredible things in his career. Lewis had moved on but others hadn’t and seemed to take pleasure from making him relive one of his worst professional moments.

Lewis said he was glad it happened because it’s a part of his journey. He says it’s created interest and more knowledge about his track career amongst the younger generation. When he’s interviewed and reporters laugh about it, he’s good natured, but quick to point out that his anthem has been viewed by more people (more than 2.5 million views on You Tube) than have seen or heard their show. He also points out that he has two albums and a gold record. He says that if that’s how people want to define him, then that’s fine. In his mind, it helps define the type of people you’re around. If people choose to define you by one bad moment, that’s on them. He says the one thing he always wanted to be was Carl Lewis and he’s been that for fifty-seven years so he’s the lucky one.

Hearing Patrick tell this story got me thinking about failure. In life, things happen. Good and bad. There are disagreements and quarrels and sometimes bad blood is left as a result. Other times there are wonderful things that happen and unfortunately, in my opinion, the good is often forgotten or overlooked.

Over the course I’ve my career I’ve had experiences that I don’t care to relive or have people know about. I think we all have. I’ve failed and I’m ok with that because it’s helped me learn and become the person I am today.

Advice from the GOAT

Michael Jordan talks a lot about failure. He once said, “I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying again. I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

While failure is never fun, here are four tips to help alleviate the toll failure takes and overcome it to become successful.

• Have a short memory. In basketball or sports of any kind, coaches talk about having a short memory. What this means is that you’re going to miss shots. That’s ok. It’s even expected. You can’t let a few misses stop you from competing or derail your career. In basketball the best shooters have a mindset that the next shot is going in. It doesn’t matter how many shots they’ve missed, they always believe the next one is going in and aren’t afraid to keep shooting.
• Be honest. My mother always taught me that, “Honesty is the best policy.” I believe that to be true and I counsel my clients to keep that in mind when dealing with the press. Even if the truth is embarrassing or unflattering, it usually only hurts once whereas lying and being caught in a lie can lead to more embarrassment and questioning of character.
• Set goals. I look at goals as a challenge for the things I want to accomplish each week, month or year. Writing them down makes them feel more real. They’re not just in my head, I’ve expressed them and made them tangible. Once I‘ve written them I become obsessed with accomplishing them. I’ll often set long-term, monthly goals and then smaller goals to help me arrive at and achieve these goals. I also set goals that will take me out of my comfort zone and force me to extend myself. An easily attainable goal is boring for me. I want to challenge myself and stretch my capabilities. If for some reason I don’t accomplish my goals I’ll review them and reevaluate them if necessary. I don’t like excuses, but I do like to know and understand what prevented me from achieving my goal. In my experience, goals help keep me focused on what I want and what’s important most.
• Measure and review progress. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of everyday life we forget to stop, review and appreciate not only the journey but the accomplishments. On a day-to-day basis it can be difficult to see how much progress you’ve made and how far you’ve come. About four years ago I began running again. The first week or two was rough. I could only run for short distances before becoming fatigued and wanting to stop. As I started running again, I created a calendar to track my runs. I track distance and time. In the beginning, I would also track how many times I stopped and what point along the course I was stopping. Early on it was pretty easy to track progress as I was consistently running for longer periods of time. It was invigorating and motivating to have instant access to the progress I was making. Once I got into better shape, the progress was more difficult to track. I had to pay attention just to notice even little improvements. At times I wondered if I was progressing. At the end of each month I sit down and review my calendar and monthly goals. It’s at these times that I can see the progress I had made during the month. I would not only hit goals, but often exceed them. I remember at one point my family and I drove to Disneyland. As we drove I tracked the mileage and realized as we were arriving in Anaheim that the distance we drove was roughly the distance I had run to date that year. It was an eye opener and a significant realization of just how far I had come. To this day, I still track my daily runs on a calendar and still find myself surprised and at times impressed with what I’m accomplishing on a monthly basis.

I find that when I am doing these things, when failure happens I’m able to meet it head on and grow from it.  It’s still not easy, but I’m able to approach it from the perspective that it’s part of my journey to becoming the best version of myself.