Tag Archives: Failure

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Wild and Precious FYI

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“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

Have I done a wild and precious life?

Yes, I am thinking i have, especially as I sit here in my robe and combat boots (with shearling lining- really, they’re like slippers!), and a cowlick in my bangs- what could be more precious and wild?

I was reading my morning blogs at O’ dark hundred thinking along the same lines really, like, “wow, life is amazing”.

I have not written my book yet, or starred in my own short animated film, done a duet with Molly Shannon on SNL, or earned hundreds and thousands of dollars, had intimate conversation with Ira Glass from This American Life, or sat in an interview with Katie Couric whilst seated on Bradley Cooper’s lap, yet, but I can say I’ve lived a wild and precious life so far… yes.

and, I want more, so what I plan to do, is fail more.

When I look at my life I realize that it’s ripe with failure…  yay! God it took me so so long to be able to embrace this, and to realize that; the way to gain is to lose. 

Daring to fail = daring to succeed, you can’t have one without the other.

In order for life to be wild and precious it must be vital, daring, and on-purpose.

In order to live more, I have to die more…

It’s the exposure to life’s polarizing moments that unite us.

It’s by losing yourself, that you can find your way back.

It’s by giving of yourself that you will gain.

Huh?

I know.. it’s crazy really… apparently the meaning of life just plopped itself on my un-showered lap and cuddled in for a morning snuggle, and you, my TRP sister (or friend),  are the beneficiary of this “wild and precious” fyi this morning.

Lucky. You.

 

 

 

 

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How to Fail Well, and Fail Often

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I once read a story told by one of my favorite marketers.  He was describing a job interview that an applicant was having with a thriving company.

The executive conducting the interview wanted to know about the applicants job history, the projects he/she had worked on, and skills he/she had that might add value to the position being offered.  He also asked the applicant what he/she had failed at in his/her professional or personal life.

The applicant downplayed and minimized his/her failures and redirected the conversation toward his/her strengths and successes.

At the end of what seemed to be a delightful and positive interview the applicant asked for the job.

The executive paused for a moment- and acknowledged that although he thought the applicant had a lot to offer, he felt strongly that he/she had not experienced enough failure to really have the wisdom he felt his growing company needed.

The applicant was stunned.  You mean, he/she would have gotten the job if he had failed more?!!!

YES.

Those who fail, learn.

Those who learn, gain wisdom, perspective, and insight.

Human beings are not born with these skills – but given the opportunity over and over again to get good at failing.  Most of us refuse- and so we insulate ourselves from it and keep ourselves safe and small choosing only to do the things that they think will end successfully.  This way ,they can continue to feel good about themselves and protect themselves from learning and growing.  Silly – yes?

Fail More. Fail Often.

What has your biggest failure taught you?  Do you wish it hadn’t happened, or did it give you wisdom, perspective, and insight?  I’d love to hear. 

 

 

 

Slow Love

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About a year ago I read Slow Love- How I lost my job, Put on my pajamas & Found happiness by Dominique Browning. I savored every page, and was sad to have it come to an end.

Dominique is in her fifties and lost her job as editor of House & Garden when the magazine folded at the end of 2007. Like so many people lately, she was suddenly out of work. At the same time her children had left home, and she ended a long love affair, as well as sold the home that she thought she would live in forever.

Having lost my knitwear design job after sixteen years in 2007, I could relate to suddenly losing the main thing that she so accurately says “defined her days, paced and regulated her life.” She had feared losing it for many years, and when it happened, it nearly flattened her. With the busyness of her work gone, she was left with plenty of time to think about life, which she writes about with bold honesty and humor. It is like reading someone’s diary.

I especially like her quote of Adam Nicolson’s from Sea Room:

 “At the back of that hurry is the knowledge that it is a screen against honesty.”

 

That is one powerful sentence.

Slow Love is about living life more slowly. As Dominique says, it is “the love that comes of an unhurried and focused attention to the simplest things, available to all of us, at any time, should we choose to engage…..Perhaps even importantly, slow love comes out of the quiet hours, out of learning from the silence that is always there when we want it.”

Slow Love is about finding peace. It’s a great read, and I highly recommend it.

Written by Louise at Lines of Beauty

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Revelation: An A+ Failure

Until I was in my very late thirties If someone had asked me about my education and what I was like in school growing up, I would have laughed and told them that I was a failure.  Now I think differently.

I think looking back that school failed ME.  Grades were simply not the measure of my intelligence or abilities.  If they had been I would be challenged to believe on paper that the poor grades (F, D, C-, C+) somehow told the larger story of who I am.  Inside I am vibrant, imaginative, kind, and lovable.  I have a great work ethic, and a vision and instinct (when in my zone) that allow me to see an opportunity, act when I am inspired, and speak my truth (the latter more recently).  I wish that I’d been taught instead the value of developing and honing skills of self- reflection. How to learn, apply, and retain information as an individual and how to deepen my learned experiences through INSIGHTS  (AKA: REVELATIONS). Grades can’t tell the more important and essential story which is that knowledge ≠ wisdom.  I think wisdom is gained through other experiences such as:

How I treat someone when the going gets tough?
Who I am when the world, community, friends or family do not agree with my decisions or perspective?
How I behave when I am angry or sad?
How I clean up my messes in life and take responsibility for my mistakes?
How I act when I am successful?
How I communicate toward others and how often and honor and respect their thoughts, idea’s and feelings?
How willing I am to be vulnerable, exposed, and afraid?
How willing I am to own my own greatness, call my own shots, and live from a place of truth- no matter what the outcome?

After college I held my degree for a few minutes in my hands, and since that time I’ve never really laid eyes on it again. Who it mattered to, I’m not really sure… but somehow I got that it mattered. Since that time no one has challenged that I’ve had an education.  They simply assumed I did, and I imagine they assumed I’d had one of the best ( and I have).  What did “Bachelor of Arts” degree really mean to them- or to anyone?  Most people I talk to have no idea what they learned in college academically. For all I know employers, colleagues and clients made up their own assumptions about what degree I earned. No one has ever asked and if they did I’d tell them I made it through my entire school experience and four years of college just by the hair of my chinny chin chin.  What a waste of time all those years comparing my personal triumphs, trials and accomplishments to a grading system that considered my very real and significant developments and dignity not.

I never once felt inferior since graduating- certainly  not to my friends with pedigree’s such as Boston College, Yale, and Columbia, ( I make it up that I even had those friends, ha, I might have- It just never mattered for me to ask, nor have I been asked!) It’s amazing how much “meaning” we attach as a society to grades and status- oh what an illusion.  Throughout my career and my life I have continued to “pass” and learn and grow.  My education is never “finished”,   the difference now is I do not hold myself to anyone else’s standard  but my own, and I’ve fired myself from self judgement, and instead gathered all of the iterations of myself to myself and held them close and safe to tell them:  ”we are as successful as our failures have been (A+)  and that experiencing and allowing failure has proven to be the biggest accomplishment in our collective lives”.

Seth Godin is one of my favorite thought leaders (thought marketers) in the world.  I look for his daily emails/ blog posts because they really make me stop and think.  He listens to his own voice and speaks from his heart and head and most importantly from his failure.  This morning his post was short and powerful… this is what he said:

What (people) want

What do customers, friends, the socially networked, users, neighbors, classmates, servers, administrators, employees… maybe even brands… want?

notice me
like me
touch me
do what I say
miss me if I’m gone

I really got that.  The measures we are brought up believing as most important are, in the grande scheme of things,  nothing more than the least.  At the end of the day, all we really want as individuals striving toward wisdom is to love,  be loved, be acknowledged, be seen, touched, discovered, heard and cherished. Grades are mostly irrelevant.

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Revelation: Failure IS an OPTION

It was great to be back in NYC if even for just 24 hours.  Seth Godin was the main attraction and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute spent in an intimate setting of 100 attendee’s listening to him discuss the brilliance of failing.

As a mother, wife, and entrepreneur I’ve known a whole lot of failure, and i’ve actually felt a measure of guilt and shame to go with it.  I never considered wearing it as a badge of honor instead, and considering failure instead as a precious gift that would guide me toward competency and mastery.

(Photo Credit Robyn Ivy)

Why is it so hard for me to look at my failings in life as a gift?  Without those moments I could not have learned- literally.  It’s how I have learned to be a good at drawing, painting, photography, mothering, tennis, breast feeding, yoga, communicating, writing, marriage.

Our baby takes her first steps and falls… do we chastise her?

Our toddler spills water while learning how to drink from a glass… do we punish?

Our young child works to learn to read while failing again and again to achieve the proper sound, intonations, and phonetics of each word… do we shame him?

These are all “teaching moments” that allow our children to continue to strive toward success.   As we grow into adulthood our practical sense and acceptance of failing stops being celebrated and instead as we try to navigate the landscape of the mighty paycheck we “pretend” mastery at things. That’s when I remember the expression “fake it till you make it” rooting itself in my psyche, and in the meantime I completely forgot to embrace my failings as my best friend in my search to get “better” at all things “life”.

(Photo credit: Robyn Ivy)

Seth rounded out the afternoon of insightful conversation with a little story about working with some of his employee’s over the years.  He said that  if his employees never made mistakes he had to pull them aside for a talk.  He’d tell them that they were not failing enough, and that if they were not willing to fail he knew they were not giving him the “best” of themselves they had to give.   I apply that to my own life.  I love to learn, and if I gave myself permission to fail how much could I accomplish in this lifetime?  It reminds me of that quote….

Who would we be if we knew we could not fail?  Opens up a ton of possibilities doesn’t it?  Changes the conversation.

If there are any losers, failures or F*ck-up’s that want to hang out – you know where to find me.  I’m starting to think those people would have a lot to share with me, could teach me an awful lot, and might also give me the room to just be exactly who I am – no faking needed.