Failure is only "failure" if you choose not to learn.
Learn by doing the following:
I hope this journey was impactful for you. I enjoyed the opportunity to reflect and share insights from my own life.
Yesterday (today) I wrote (write) my last article for the failure series. I felt it appropriate as I had a significant fail that day.
Like you, I have pet peeves or small things that profoundly irritate me.
Like you, I wish people would not do things that irritate me.
Like you, I wish people would do what I say.
I woke up in the best of moods: the sun was out, the wind calming, and I felt a cool breeze. Indeed, in my mind, I was "blessed and highly favored." How could this day get any worse? I live with my sister.
My sister, in the mornings, is not always sunshine and rainbows. I am. I am the annoying person that's up at 4 AM and feels everyone "should" feel as happy as me!
You know those people, right? My sister wishes I would tone it down a notch. Out of respect for her, I probably could. However, this morning, I did not.
My sister asked me, "What do you mean you're blessed and highly favored?" and I forgot what I said, but it was along the lines that I'm alive and grateful to be walking on earth. My sister said, "okay, whatever."
I hate whatever.
Suddenly, the mood when from candy cane dreams to scorched earth. In seconds. I let my sister know how I felt about her word choice and asked her never to use it again. Enter failure.
My failure was to think I could control the actions of another. I can't! I cannot ask my sister, or any other human, to avoid saying something for my comfort and convenience. Life doesn't work that way. Instead, I need to take personal accountability.
Taking accountability for how I let the world impact me led to my freedom. Today, I learned I could not ask my sister not to use "whatever." Instead, I decided to take the step to desensitize myself to the word. I even encouraged her to use it as much as she could!
My sister and I, fortunately, have a fantastic relationship. We're best of friends. I'm glad I could have a conversation with her to share what I learned. She was happy to know that she was okay, just as she was. She was pleased to learn I was making changes within myself. We had a great day.
Failure is only "failure" when you choose not to learn.
Learn through personal accountability.
Change your perception.
Change the dialogue in your mind.
As a child, kids bullied me. As a child, people would choose others before me. As a child, people always seemed to have better things. As a child, I thought like a child.
During early adulthood, I would see others and want to be like them. I noticed leaders chose others over me. People would often post about their grandiose life on social media, and I would be jealous. As an early adult, I thought like a child.
Thinking like a child, in this way, compromises relationships. How can you be everything you're meant to when you're comparing yourself against others?
From my own life, here's what I've learned:
I've learned to realize what matters. Many things don't. When you can tune out the noise and focus on what needs focus, amazing things happen.
Consider looking at others differently.
Focus on what matters.
My mind works too fast too often. Growing up as a teenager, it was a struggle. Later as a young adult, it became a headache.
As I've intimated in previous entries, I live with bipolar disorder. I feel people create a stigma in their head about what that means; it means different things for different people. For me, when I've been up, it means that my mind races a hundred years into the future.
One time, while living in Milwaukee, I had dinner with a few business associates and friends. I can't even remember what one of my friends said, but I decided that what was said meant all of our plans would fail, and we should give up. I also decided they were terrible business partners. I fired them. The next morning I could not recall what happened. Thankfully, my friend and "fired" business partner demonstrated enough patience to fill me in.
I can imagine how difficult it would be to call someone so mercurial a friend. Thankfully, things have changed.
I've taken the time to understand a condition that creeps into my life now and then. I know myself and what triggers me. I know how to live mindfully and at peace with the world. I also learned a phrase that helps.
"Let life get ahead of you a bit."
Do you ever feel like you're trying to do too much? Or you just need to get ahead? Or, perhaps, you're thinking too far in the future? Like me?
The problem is that when we get ahead of life, we have to always look back and retrace our steps. That's not efficient. The solution is to let life get ahead of you.
When you let life get ahead, you can see what's coming up. When you can see what's coming up, you can make better decisions.
I failed with my friends a long time ago. My best friend forgave me and is still my best friend today. I've worked hard to be better and let life get ahead of me... a bit.
My father would tell me, as a kid:
"God and 'me' make a majority." — John Brady, parent
He would later come to regret imparting this advice.
I am a principled individual. I strongly believe in my values. More often than not, I have done what I think is right in spite of the majority opinion. More often than not, I ruined relationships because I felt the other party violated a sacred belief - my opinion.
I am trying to point to a specific incident where my principles got the better of me. There are so many. What I can say is that each occurrence was small, at the moment, they were of no consequence. During these frictions, people would just accuse me of being difficult for the sake of it. I never felt like I was wasting my time; I passionately advocated for my position. I was making the best arguments! Just, no one cared.
Similar to my post on expectations, I couldn't expect people to live by the same beliefs I had. Also, I realized that work was not an all-or-nothing experience. There may be times when I would need to do things that weren't aligned - and it was okay. To have a belief is right, to hold on to it in spite of the world is wrong.
Instead of advancing my worldview, I was closing others to working with me. Instead of doing things that I felt were meaningful, my causes got pushed to the side. Instead of building better and better relationships, I was losing them.
Over the last several years, I've worked to make a change within myself. To be able to step back, let life get ahead of me, and then react. To temper and ignite my passions at the right moments. To continually look for a balance. My efforts paid off - I recruited and led an impactful team of engaged leaders who do amazing things.
For others who struggle with being stubborn, let's face it - we're stubborn, I encourage you to try and see the world from another's view. Be empathetic. Take the step to imagine what would happen if things didn't go your way. Go further, imagine things successfully working out through someone else's idea. Then, when you can do that, review your values and decide if it's right. Unless you're doing harm to someone, I bet you'll be fine. I am.
I used to own a music contracting agency. This type of business hires musicians for gigs — a broker. When I started this business, I was young - 18 years old. I started it because I had something other musicians didn't. I had access.
If you're going to introduce a new product to the market, having access to the market is critical. Being able to connect others to your product or service leads to increased business. My problem was not the access; my problem was that I was aware others did not have the access I had.
Going through music school, I never excelled at any one thing. Moderately okay jazz musician, I never dedicated myself to classical, and a half-decent sight reader - looking back at it, I wouldn't have been my first call. However, at the time, I felt I "should" be. Moreover, I felt those that didn't call, or those that were "purists," had no place doing work with me. Enter pride.
Now with access to great gigs and influence, I could hold myself above others. I felt better than everybody else. I was not ashamed of demonstrating myself as being better than others. I felt those that had "poo-pooed" me earlier didn't "deserve" the benefit of my access - because now I was better. As a result, I did not give access, and I worked to create harms for them.
As with all my failures, I soured relationships. Though more than a decade ago, my previous actions follow me to the present. I learned a harsh lesson as a young man: pride and revenge don't pay.
The theme of this series is that failure is "failure" if you choose not to learn. I've learned.
Too much pride creates too many troubles.
Watch yourself.
Help others.
When I used to be a bandleader, I had a terrible reputation as being a hard ass. I was. I dedicated my entire self and soul to the music I performed. I expected no less from those playing with me. That was my problem. My expectations did not allow for mistakes.
Night after night, I demanded of myself flawless execution. There was never a reason not to do it right. One musician even asked me, "Brady, I don't know what you want from me." My response, "I want one thing, one thing. I want it right. Always."
The problem with execution always being right is by who's standards are we using? Does everyone have the same standard? Did we all have the same education? No. No to all of the above. My failure was that I expected from each performer what I believed right for myself. I projected myself into each team member, and I saw the world from their eyes if they were me. In doing so, I lost would be friends.
Budding relationships soured, and people dreaded working with me. Honestly, I would dread working with me. Nothing feels worse than feeling isolated aboard a ship in the middle of the ocean: no family, not many friends, and no work colleagues. I don't want you to pity me; I received the outcome I deserved. I've learned.
Here are steps I take, now, to avoid these missteps:
I am proud of this failure. My ability to keep expectations in check has improved my relationships with others, and most of all, with myself.
If you know me, you know that lawyers raised me, two of them. It's almost like the wolf pack raising Mowgli. My parents bred me to be a fighter. I don't like this quality about myself. Well, no, I like it in balance.
In the past, I was working for an organization where I felt we were overpaying for service. Moreover, I felt as if the vendors knew we were overpaying for the service. Then, my boss challenged me to cut the cost by almost 100%. Remember how I mentioned that I am bred to fight? Yeah.
I became obsessed with doing whatever was possible to win. For me, winning was eliminating the vendor: not even a reduction, a total annihilation. I wanted this vendor, and others like them, completely wiped from our balance sheet, never to return. There was just one problem; these types of vendors supplied talent to our company.
I ended up going on an aggressive recruiting spree. I built as many relationships as possible with colleges, musicians, influencers in different cities and countries, drummed up referrals, whatever was necessary to increase direct recruitment. For the individuals hired through our outside vendors, I still booked them. I didn't eliminate our team. But I did focus on retaining our direct recruits first. At the end of the year, we reduced our usage by almost 98%. Remarkable. But at what cost?
I failed to calculate the human cost. I became consumed with winning at all costs that the people I had to care for came second. They, indeed, became numbers on a spreadsheet. It was not until later that I realized my failure.
An employee I had hired came up to me and let me know that their recruitment moment was the singularly most important moment of their life. The individual shared that my job offer brought them out of a depressing situation. Wow. I had that impact on another human being?
Suddenly, all of the wins and cost savings meant nothing to me. It didn't matter how much we saved. What money we didn't spend translates as lives impacted. What caused me to miss the importance of others? What happened that I did not help people find other work? How could I let myself become so consumed?
Needless to say, after much soul-searching, I would learn to do this much differently.
Winning isn't winning if it costs your morality.
"Winning" is a stop along a more infinite journey.
Now, I'll focus on the journey.
Now, I'll focus on others.
The only failure I know is the failure to embrace failure. When I used to lead a large department, I would ask the leaders that reported to me - how did you fail today? Would you be surprised to learn that no one enjoyed answering the question? Quite often, I would hear, "Well, I don't think I failed..." or, "I don't like how the word 'fail' sits with me." Okay, I get it. No one likes to think they failed. But, I believe it's the use of this harsh and extreme word that motivates us to profoundly think about our actions or inactions. It can't stop there, though. In my mind, the only time "failure" does not sit right is when I choose not to learn and change from my "failure." Or, when I decide not to learn my lesson. Learning the lesson is growth, and growth is life. Will Smith and David Goggins have commented on this topic a bit. I believe they, and others like them, are right. What they get, that I wish more people would, is that failure is to be embraced. To embrace failure is to embrace learning is to embrace life. I am all about "coming alive" and becoming a more effective version of yourself. For the next few days, I am going to share my own failures. What I learned and how I've turned many negatives into positives. I hope you'll consider following along.Also…if you know others that would find this content helpful, please be generous and share.
I believe that the best lessons are learned young. Ever walk into an office, especially a doctor's office, and see diplomas upon diplomas on the wall? I believe part of the reason for hanging degrees relates to pride, and the other part relates to establishing trust. "Here, you can trust me, because I've gone to school for what I do, and I'm a professional." For those of us in professions where a degree may not be required, what do we have? We have our experience. We have a lifetime of working with other people - playing well with others.We have a lifetime of serving other people's needs - sitting and paying attention.We have a lifetime of demonstrating self-accountability - putting away our things.We have years developing our crafts - learning about and using colors.We have a lifetime of advocating for ourselves - knowing our names.I keep my kindergarten diploma on my wall. I do it as a reminder that the most effective ways of being are the simplest ways of being — no need to overcomplicate the simple. Everything you need, you learned in Kindergarten.