Three Empowering Ways to Reframe Failure -

Do you often struggle with feelings of failure? You’re not alone. In this episode of Flow Over Fear and Three Things, Adam Hill shares his personal perspective on failure and offers three empowering ways to look at it. Discover how successful people have overcome challenges and failures on their way to success. Find out how to turn failure into a learning experience and use it as a stepping stone to greater success. Learn to be comfortable in the discomfort of setbacks and reframe them in a positive light. Tune in now for a transformational talk on the power of failure.”

The three ways to look at failure as empowering are:

Failure can build resilience.
Failure is an opportunity to learn and grow.
Failure is an opportunity to transform.

Transcript

we can learn from our darkest moments
and if we choose to learn from those
darkest moments we can grow out of them
and become something better so that a
year later a decade later we can look
back on our life and look at the number
of Miracles that have happened
and we can look back at our ourselves as
we felt hopeless and feel grateful that
we chose the path of healing and chose
the path of learning
we can learn from failure and when we do
learn from failure when we do learn from
our setbacks we can grow and that growth
can Compound on itself
hello everyone and welcome to the flow
over fear podcast where it is our
mission to help you to rise above fear
and realize your ultimate potential in
leadership and life I’m your host Adam
Hill and it is my goal to share with you
the human side of high performance my
guests share their experience with fear
anxiety struggle Challenge and most
importantly despite all of it how they
Rose above it to achieve incredible
results so if you’re ready to rise up
let’s get started
hey everyone welcome to this episode of
flow over fear and three things and
today on this episode of three things I
want to share three empowering ways to
look at failure and this has been
something that’s been on my mind and on
my heart lately because
you know going through different
challenging times and and experiencing
things in my life especially over the
last couple of years or a few years that
have felt like I was failing
it hasn’t been a good feeling and I know
that for many people out there
especially amidst the you know
environment that we’re in
failure the feel feeling like failing
feeling like a failure can be a common
theme
and one of the things that
that has happened to me that that that
has changed in my perspective since I’ve
began associating with people that I
want to be like that I want to emulate
successful people I’ve noticed that
amidst the successes that they have
they also have experienced a lot of
failure and that’s one of the things
that I talk about on the show with the
people I interview is is you know where
have things gotten dark
amidst this high performance you’ve done
that a lot of people have have achieved
great things despite having the
significant challenges that have been in
their lives that we might construe as
failure
a lot of times we’re really hard on
ourselves
you know we’re hard on ourselves when
things don’t go the way we want them to
because things don’t land perfectly in
the squares of the circles that we want
them to land in
and because it didn’t happen perfectly
we consider it a failure we don’t give
ourselves a lot of Grace in those
moments we don’t we don’t shape our
perspectives in the right way to
actually look at it as a learning
experience on which we can grow from
and Achieve New Heights
I know that I am guilty of this often I
mean daily I’m probably guilty of this
Ben and and that’s why I want to
communicate this is is not just to
help other people to help and help you
hopefully learn that failure doesn’t
have to be the be all end-all of of what
you might be working on but that it can
be a platform for greater success and I
want to convey that to myself as well
and continue to remind myself of that
because no matter how we swing it
failure does not feel good
setbacks do not feel good
when we when we Face challenges a lot of
times they don’t feel good but the
secret to success is discomfort
and getting that and learning to be
comfortable in that discomfort of what
we perceive to be failure and maybe
reframing it into something positive and
celebrating those failures might be the
way to achieve greater success
and so I want to kind of I want to lead
into this with a bit of a story about
one of my first experiences with failure
I think I was about four or five years
old and our family was visiting Yosemite
and I remember this was during the
middle of winter
and so there was snow all around and and
everything looked Majestic and I
remember that we went to an ice skating
rink and my siblings who were all a few
years older than I did than I was
you know took to the ice skating very
very easily they they got on the ice
they maybe flail a little bit but then
they started going but my four-year-old
five-year-old self
I didn’t really take kindly to the ice
and I didn’t want to venture out into
the middle of the ice skating rink
because that’s where it was scary that’s
where you know I would fall and I
wouldn’t have any support so my goal for
that trip to the ice skating rink
was to just follow the wall all around
the rink until I got to the other side
and I will tell you within the first few
feet I I held onto that wall and as I
held onto that wall and I kept moving
down the The Ice I would fall
notoriously you know and and uh and and
followed my butt and then I’d be I’d be
there and I’d have to pick myself up and
start crawling again
and I did that and every time I fell I
got back up and I kept creeping along
the wall it was not a pretty sight it
was it was darn right ugly but as I got
about halfway down halfway along the ice
skating rink I remember that I had
people that were just watching me that
were really cheering me on that really
wanted me to succeed in this and it was
no longer just a series of a bunch of
little failures where I kept falling
down
but it became learning the lessons and
moving a little farther along before I
fell the next time and then learning to
get a little bit more courage and taking
maybe one hand off of the wall until
finally probably about 30 minutes later
I made it around the ice skating rink to
the other side and then I was done
and that was a that was a powerful
experience I can look back on and and
really reflect on as as just kind of a
small scale experience with failure I
mean this was not a a wide scale life
transforming experience although at the
time it was something I could be very
proud of my four-year-old or
five-year-old little snow boots
it was
but it was something I can look back on
and and associate with how I perceive
failure
I could have fallen once
and then said well this is terrible I
don’t like this and then I would have
gotten off the ice and I would have just
considered myself a failure
but I chose instead to keep going and
this is something that David manimo who
is on uh was was on my podcast not long
ago had described pretty well that that
failure is only happens when we give up
if we keep going
we’re not really failing we’re failing
upward we’re failing forward
and that’s exactly what I did was I
failed forward in that experience and
you might not be trying to get an around
an ice skating rink things might be a
little more
uh more difficult in your life you know
this it could be during these kinds of
economic circumstances where we’re
seeing layoffs left and right from from
the big technology companies you could
be being laid off from one of those
companies and that could feel like a
tremendous failure that has us feeling
very vulnerable because of the lives
that we the livelihoods that we’ve put
into these jobs that we have only to be
laid off you could be in the opposite
position of being a leader who has to
lay off people which is no more no more
enjoyable than than having to sit on the
other side of that chair and you might
feel like it’s a failure
but
I will say that as painful as those
circumstances are and I’ve been in that
seat twice where I’ve lost my job uh two
occasions in my life and had to start
from scratch
and
it’s never a fun thing
but the result is if you can look at it
as an opportunity
and you could seek the opportunity in it
you can change your perspective on on
that failure yeah no it’s not going to
be pleasant it’s going to be painful but
remember that the growth happens in
discomfort
and this is this will be an opportunity
to grow
uh in those and and we also have to
remember within that just kind of
sitting in this in this in this world of
of layoffs at the moment uh you know
I’ll say that
that people like Abe Lincoln Steve Jobs
JK Rowling Howard Stern Lady Gaga Mark
Cuban Michael Bloomberg Oprah Winfrey
and Walt Disney do you know what they
all had in common they were all laid off
at one time and Walt Disney in
particular was laid off because because
the newspaper that he was laid off from
said that he lacked imagination
can you think about that the guy who
created Disneyland
lacks imagination
I mean he literally has employees called
imagineers but remember that this that
even if it’s not a good fit it might
just be a new opportunity to take on
something new and I’m not saying you
have to go out there you have to be Mark
Cuban or Oprah Winfrey or anything like
that
but if you can reshape that perspective
of failure
into something more meaningful more
empowering it can change your life
I know it did even in the midst of my
layoffs that that I was uh I was unhappy
that that it was a scary time in my life
but I was able to but in retrospect and
looking back it was probably the
greatest thing that ever happened to me
in those situations
and so that kind of leads into what what
can happen from failure how can we shift
it into it how what are some empowering
ways in which we can look at failure
and I keep using the word because I want
to I want to reframe it completely I
don’t want it to sound like it’s a
negative connotation I want it to be
just a setback that we can actually grow
from
so the first thing of three is that
failure builds resilience if we bring
the right perspective to it as long as
we don’t lean into that victim mentality
and we don’t live in that victim
mentality
uh we will we can we can instead
perceive it we can lean into
open-mindedness of what might be an
opportunity that’s yet to come if we
instead fall uh uh fall victim to
whatever circumstances are happening to
us that that perceive us as victim we’re
more likely to leave the ice skating
rink before we get around the entire
rink
and that is the ultimate definition of
the negative failures that we is that we
give up before we have the chance to see
the miracle happen
so that first part
it will build resilience if you allow it
to if you don’t lean into that victim
mentality and yes it’s going to hurt it
first yes it’s okay to feel those
feelings yes it’s okay to do whatever
you need to do to to experience that
feelings but move on move on from it and
start to grow again and start to and
start to lean into the growth that you
want to experience
and the second one which is a little
cliche but it Bears repeating is that
failure is an opportunity to learn and
grow
we can learn from those experiences
in this in a situation where you might
be laid off from a job you might think
to yourself well this is a learning
experience for me to understand maybe
what kinds of positions I should be in
or maybe I can learn what might have
helped me to keep that job or what kind
of experiences I can I can gain from
this or what kind of resourcefulness I
can use so that if this ever happens
again I don’t have to be in this in this
difficult of a state I can learn from
this in my in one of my circumstances
um I um
you know about 11 years ago I
I was at my bottom and this was I was
a terrible anxiety in the midst of my
alcoholism and I was at my worst to the
point where I was sitting in a jail cell
after a DUI and I thought that my life
was over I was completely hopeless
but
fortunately I leaned in to help I leaned
into Community I learned it leaned into
that uh resourcefulness and I learned
lessons about myself at that point I
learned that I didn’t have control over
alcohol anymore that that I never really
did
that I learned that I was a true
alcoholic I learned to get real with
myself I learned to dig deep on my
emotions and I learned to heal that’s
what ultimately got me to that level of
being able to face my fears walk into
the rooms of AA and start to recover
from that
we can learn from our darkest moments
and if we choose to learn from those
darkest moments we can grow out of them
and become something better so that a
year later a decade later we can look
back on our life and look at the number
of Miracles that have happened
and we can look back at our ourselves as
we felt hopeless and feel grateful that
we chose the path of healing and chose
the path of learning
we can learn from failure and when we do
learn from failure when we do learn from
our setbacks we can grow and that growth
can Compound on itself
and the final thing the FI the third
thing that the third empowering way that
we can look at failure is that failure
is an opportunity to transform
and this is an important element of my
experience coming out of that jail cell
that that day I could have chosen not to
transform
and would have lived in that in that
spiral and probably not be alive today
but instead I chose to transform who I
was
not just learn from the experience but
even transcend that experience transcend
the desire to drink and transcend my
anxiety
to transform my life into something new
to transform who I was into something
new that could be more powerful
how can the setbacks in your life
spark a transformation
in your life
how can what you would perceive as a
failure spark a transformation is it a
transformation of a new beginning a new
job a new career a new business a new
health Venture what is it in your life
that you can transform the power is
within you
the power is is within you and you can
you can succeed through that
um just one recent experience that I I
take this this uh this message of
of empowering empowerment through
failure or learning through failure
transforming through failure I try to
live it out my own life now especially
as I continue to go through some of my
own challenges uh in challenges in my
business challenges in in you know
starting up this this coaching business
and the speaking business or or
challenges of my own you know family or
or whatever it may be
it’s not always perfect because I always
feel the feelings it’s always hard it’s
always uncomfortable and a lot of and
sometimes I lean into that victim
mentality of why me or why is this
happening to me but ultimately if I can
just take a deep breath and reset and
look at at a new perspective on it
uh I I can take that take those setbacks
and learn from them and transform
recently I’ve been taking a karate class
I’ve been I’ve been in a karate class
with my family the whole family does it
it’s really really awesome and I enjoy
it and in that karate class I learn a
series of we learn a series of defensive
techniques they’re called DTS which
quite interesting for an alcoholic to
learn something called the DTs when you
know that’s what I experienced in my
alcoholic days but I digress
um the DTs in in karate are called
Defensive techniques and there are over
100 of them 108 of them I think
and
I’m on number 12 so that goes to show
where where I’m at about in my journey
of of this karate uh
but dt-12 was always a bit of a
challenge to me it seems very simple you
know first you kick with one foot
forward and then you spin you kick with
you you kick towards your back and then
you complete the spin and you land you
know on your feet
and it was it’s always been difficult
for me as I trained for it but I was
recently in a class where our instructor
said you know all right we’re going to
focus on two DTS today what is your
favorite DT and what is the one you’re
struggling with the most
and so I chose mine and the one I was
struggling with the most was dt12 and
over the course of the next hour I had
to do probably 50 or 60 of that D that
DT in a row in multiple different
scenarios in you know against the air
against another person in a tactical
situation so that I could learn to get
to perfect it 59 of those times I failed
at it
the 60th and then the 61st and then the
62nd and so on and so forth for
throughout however many times we did it
I actually did it correctly I learned I
transformed it I was able to transform
the uh the the actions that I was doing
into something more positive because I
was able to learn through that
experience
I built the resilience that’s that was
my recent adult experience around of of
getting around the ice skating rink
whilst falling throughout most of that
experience
but throughout that process I built
resilience
I used it as an opportunity to learn and
grow
and I used it to an opera as an
opportunity to transform who I was and
ultimately
because of that perspective on on
failure
and failing upward towards success
I was able to gain more confidence at
the end and realize now I can do this
what else can I do
we have that capability because of
failure because of the way we might fail
to increase our comp confidence and our
competence
so what is your perspective on failure
are you going to look at it as something
that is insurmountable something that
something that leads into wanting to be
a victim or leads you into wanting or
leads you into this feeling of absolute
hopelessness or despair
are you going to use it to your
advantage to grow to become something
new
and to become your own greatest hero
thank you for joining me today and I’ll
look forward to seeing you next time
thanks
hey everyone Thanks for tuning in to the
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