How Can I Ask for Help When it Makes Me Feel Like a Failure?

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Welcome to path to peace with Todd Perelmuter. I'm your host, Todd Perelmuter our world is a projection of our collective consciousness, the more peace we bring into our lives, the more peace we bring into this world. So let the transformation begin. Today, the question is, how to ask for help, when it makes me feel like a failure? And there's really three components to this question. The first one is what do we mean by the word failure? The second component is Who Am I? Who is the I that is the failure? Where is this entity? And the third component is, how do we reframe this notion of failure so that it doesn't generate feelings of insecurity, inferiority, and ultimately, fear of not being good enough fear of disappointing people fear of maybe being homeless and hungry on the street. And in doing so, by reframing failure, as something not to be afraid of, as something that doesn't create negative feelings within us, then we are able to ask for help, we are able to communicate our needs, clearly, lovingly, thoughtfully, because when we ask for help, and we feel like a failure, we ask that help from a place of desperation, from that place of fear. And we are already feeling like a failure. And if someone says no to our help, we are going to feel like an even bigger failure. And so it is vitally important that we reframe failure so that we have the confidence and courage, unshakable confidence and courage to communicate, often mutually beneficial ideas to people who are in positions to help us. And when we are most confident, and not insecure, or scared, people are going to be much more likely to invest in us to give us a helping hand. Then if we are seemingly scared and terrified and unsure of ourselves, because if someone is going to help us, they actually want us to succeed. And so it is more likely that successful people help people that they believe will be successful. They don't want to waste their time. And so when we reframe that failure from you know, a personal failing into a minor setback that is easily conquerable. If we just get a little bit of help from someone that's going to get a much more positive response than someone who's frantic and you gotta help me, I'll, I'll die without you. You know, it's just that desperation, signals to a person that this person is in chaos mode, this person is unstable, and irrational, and is probably going to squander the help that is given. And so later on, I'll talk about how we do that reframing so that we are coming to people, not with selfish needs, but of mutual opportunity. So first, let's talk about failure as we know it as we think about it. So first, let's try to imagine a failure in our mind. And what does that person look like? Not ourselves, but somebody else. Maybe you're thinking of a homeless person. Maybe you're thinking of an alcoholic or a gambling addict. And what are we thinking about? When we think of these people, we think of someone who Who has wasted opportunity, we think of someone who has given up someone who has thrown their life away. So those are the most extreme examples of what we tend to think of when we think of failures in life. But each of those scenarios, there is somebody who turned their life around from being in that position. Tyler Perry, the owner of the largest movie studio in the world, is a person who was at once homeless. Every day, alcoholics, and gambling addicts are giving up their vise, and choosing a path towards healing, and willing to make that noble journey of starting over, and rebuilding. And that strength to start over and rebuild is within every single one of us. It doesn't matter what your history is, if you are breathing, you have the ability to start over, and it is never too late. I know people who have had to start careers at 80, and been incredibly successful. The human spirit is the most resilient spirit on the planet of any species. Most species, when they are born, are almost fully self sufficient. And a horse within minutes of being born, can get up walk and run. And this is true of most species where a newborn is almost a fully developed animal. Except for humans, humans, because we rapidly got these very large brains and very large heads had to adapt to a very high mortality rate for new mothers in the birthing process. And so as where humans would have been born, maybe 10, or 11, or 12, months after conception, the baby needed to be born before it was fully developed. So that it could have the brain grow outside of the womb. And this would create an easier birth for the mother and a safer birth. So evolution adapted, and humans were born completely reliant. And our brains not fully formed, couldn't walk for a very long time after birth. And we had a very long period of development after birth. Now this shift in evolution enabled humans to be the most adaptive species on the planet. And that is why human beings have spread out to every single corner of the world, and live in every single type of environment. This is very rare for any species. And this adaptiveness created all of the diversity of human culture and ways we live and interact with each other. So unlike a horse, which is born with all of the knowledge that it will need to survive, human beings are molded, we need to acquire that. And so in the exact same way that we learn a language, and we later learn a skill and a career. It is that adaptability that makes humans very different from all the other species. And we have that ability to

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try things, test them out, explore. If something fails, we try again in a different way. We adapt and evolve constantly, and we are constantly improving our technology. We are constantly expanding out into the universe. And we can see in the collective human consciousness that the human species is the greatest failure of any species in humanity. I mean, you don't have to look hard through history to see The mistakes that humans have made as a species, from every war to every crazy dictator, to polluting our planet for profits, humans are a failing mess. But we also persevere. And that is the most important part because it is good when we learn that the first rocket ship is a failure, and we fix it, and we make it better. And we try a test launch again. And this time it works, but maybe certain component on the rocket ship didn't work. And so we fix that, and we embrace failure as a way to move forward. And we, as individuals, also have that same consciousness within us. And we all have that same drive, because each of us makes up the collective. And we all have within us that creative spark, that drive to make the world a more beautiful place for future generations. Whether that is creating art, community service, creating joy and happiness for our friends and loved ones. Or even just going to work every day in doing a job that adds value to someone's life. And whatever your purpose is in life, whenever obstacles appear, whenever setbacks take place. When this happens, we call it failure. And we call ourselves failures. But that is only a label that we put on ourselves. Most of us will not be forced to live our lives wearing a sign around our neck that says failure on it. And so this feeling of failure is 100%. self created. Even if other people tell you you're a failure, insult you name call the worst imaginable thing. Ultimately, they still cannot make you feel like a failure, because all feelings come from within. And they are tied to our thoughts and how we perceive the world. And if we change our perception, we change our emotional response. And we change our mental response. Because we no longer perceive others as authorities on who we are. We recognize that we are the ultimate authority. And when we change our perception of who we are, and the meaning of failure, we change how we view ourselves. And that emotional and mental response to setbacks can become fueling instead of draining. But before we get into how to reframe failure, let's first dive in into who is the failure? Where does the person with the label failure exist? Most of the time, we think that our brain is our essence, who we really are. And that if I'm a failure, it's this darn piece of gray matter in my head, that must be the problem. But who of us, made our brains? We didn't make our brain. We didn't fail at creating our brain, the universe created our brain. And so why would we take responsibility for something we had no role in? We had no responsibility, and how well or how big we made our brain who here was born with all the experience, they would need to never make a mistake. None of us, okay, so we don't have the experience. And we have no responsibility for the effectiveness of our brain. So where does responsibility In failure, why. And the closer we look, we realize there actually is no

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entity, that is a failure. Within any of us, there is no neuron, within our brain responsible for these choices, just as the entire brain works cohesively, to make choices and for thoughts to appear, so too does the entire universe work together to guide choices and decisions, no choice, and no decision happens in a vacuum. They happen because of countless experiences, countless data points, that all come into our brain, mostly through the subconscious. And from that subconscious, have a vast understanding of a situation, individual thoughts bubble to the surface. And we can feel that kind of subconscious understanding, as the intuition that kind of guides our thoughts. And so not just our our decisions and choices made by this cohesive network of brain neurons, which also are given information through hormones, and hunger, and all of the other drives in a human body that affect a brain's moods, and thoughts and choices. So to the entire universe is influencing us all the time. And all of that influence is another thing we have no control over. And so, when we really understand that we are a byproduct of our circumstance, and these bodies, both of which we had no responsibility, and we completely become free from failure, because there is no i, there is no separate, distinct entity, that is me or you, there is only the universe, changing in form, constantly, stars, exploding into dust throughout the universe, and that dust becoming planets, and people. And just as there are the laws of physics, this entire universe is governed by these laws of nature. And each one of us is only acting within our nature, with the best information we have at the moment, to think we are so powerful, that we can be perfect people and perfect human beings without ever making mistakes without ever failing is really the height of delusion. And it is an assumption that creates all of our suffering, we are not so powerful as to be all knowing, and to be able to read the future and know how every action is going to work out. And that is actually a good thing. Because that enables us to instead of fear failure, and resist failure and hate failure and hate ourselves when we fail. We can embrace failure. We can love failure, we can be so grateful that the universe showed us sooner than later that what we were doing was not the right course of action for ourselves. And the sooner we get to failure, the sooner we can course correct. And this brings me into how we can reframe failure. So we can ask for help without feeling like an even bigger failure. If we want to be successful, we must look at what the most successful people on Earth have done. And when we do that, we see an attitude of embracing failure. When we are Are you scared to fail? Oftentimes, we become too scared to start. Whether it is Michael Jordan, or Steve Jobs, or any number of brilliant, I can't iconic class. They all faced immense, innumerable obstacles. They all tried to do something that had never been done before. And everyone thought they were crazy. And whether it was losing games, or dealing with angry investors, these people that society worships failed so much, and so many more times than they succeeded. But it only took one more success for them to be winners. If you had gone up to Michael Jordan, or Steve Jobs, on a bad day, when Michael Jordan lost a big game, or when Steve Jobs was fired at Apple, we would have looked at those people and thought, wow, they are real failures. They just didn't have what it takes. But history is different. Because Steve Jobs went and started another computer company started a little animation studio called Pixar. And later, days away from bankruptcy, was brought back into Apple and saved the company with the almost immediate announcement of the iMac. If you saw Michael Jordan quit basketball, and become a failed baseball player, and you just stopped there, you would say, Wow, this guy's a failure. If instead, you waited, and you watched him get back up, and you get him back to basketball, and he wins another championship, then you say, This man is a winner. And what we have to remember is two things. Neither one of these people did it alone, they both had huge amount of support from their close circles and from their family and friends, failure is only giving up. Failure is only giving up. And as long as we keep getting back up. As long as we put those shoes on in the morning and get to work. There is no such thing as failure. There is only achieving. You may not have achieved everything you wanted right away. But you are in that process. And as soon as you wake up, you put on those shoes and you make that decision. You've won the day. And when you ask someone for help, you are not a failure in that moment because failures don't ask for help. You are a winner because you are taking the steps towards achieving. Be proud to ask for help. If you do not ask people for help people who are more brash, more arrogant, more cocky, and maybe less contemplative, less thoughtful, less wise, will take what you were afraid to ask for. It is okay. That thoughts of being a failure pop into your mind. Every successful person says they feel like frauds. What's not okay? If you want to be a successful person and not feel like a failure is believing those thoughts? And instead of believing those thoughts as your highest self telling you wisdom from up high.

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Recognize that these are thoughts conditioned by all the naysayers you've met through your life. These are thoughts from the media, and its idea of success and its timeline for success. And as you witness those thoughts with that greater understanding of where they're coming from, then there's no believing it, we can just recognize them for what they are. That irrational fear. And we don't have to put any energy into that thought. We can just watch it come and go. We don't attach and latch onto it. And we don't fight it, resist it, ignore it, hate it. We just let it be. And get back to work. Let it be, get back to our life. This happened, accept it, move on. Be brave. Take those big chances. Reach out to big people. Ask for help when you need it. And embrace all of the knows all of the rejections, all of the people who say your ideas, not for them, or they're not interested and be grateful that they are out of the way and you are marching forward and moving on to those people who care about you who love mentoring and nourishing young minds, or even old mines. There is so much generosity, kindness, and love and support in this world. You've just got to break through those noes and those negative feelings so that you can get to the yeses. And you can get to those people that are the perfect, professional or personal relationships that will lead you towards a life of not just personal and financial success, but who you can grow and evolve with mutually spiritually so that it's not about the success you have on paper in your life. But you can look back and be proud that you lived a joyful life filled with peace and love from yourself and others. Thank you so much for listening, peace and love. You've been listening to path to peace with Todd Perelmuter. Being here and putting in this important and noble work is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself and others. If you found this podcast even a little helpful. Please make sure to leave a review so it can reach others who may be in need. And remember, the path to peace starts with a single step.