How to Embrace Failure

So like tapping out your opponent. And I very quickly got obsessed with this sport. I found the art of it to be , um, really beautiful and intricate. So , um, I still remember this summer that I devoted to just going really deep into jujitsu. And this summer stands out to me because it was the summer that I painted my house, my parents' house with my brother. And so I would train jujitsu in the morning, paint my house all day, and then train jujitsu in the evening.

And this was my life , uh, almost seven days a week that summer. And boy was that first month of training. Tough. Demoralizing is a better word cause I got my buck kicked. Now obviously when you're starting out in a martial art or anything and you're going to be most likely the lowest ranked person there or handful of people that are on the same level. But the time slots that I was training in always had people that were ranked higher than me.

So every grappling match I went into, and jujitsu you call it rolling. Every time I rolled with someone I got tapped out. Like I, there was just no chance. I was learning some stuff at the beginning of class. I'd roll with someone and they'd submit me. It would be a rear naked choke. It would be an armbar , it would be a Kamora , it would be an ankle lock and just like time after time after time, tap out, tap out, tip out to tip out over and over and over. And I was exerting a lot of effort.

It was really enthusiastic about this. I mean in the evenings I was looking up videos about jujitsu. I was watching everyone really trying to take notes and get it and I , I learned a new technique at the beginning of class feel like I got it, try to apply it and boom, 30 seconds, tap out again. And uh , in the beginning it was like playful and uh, you know, I expected this to happen cause I was new.

But after a month of this, of just constantly exerting all of this effort, putting in so much energy and pouring in a lot of passion into this that I wanted to develop to still be getting tapped out each time, ending up empty handed , uh, it was, it was tough. They often brought up a lot of emotion. Um, I don't, I just remember having these feelings of wanting to cry. Uh, and it wasn't because I was sad. I wasn't getting better. It was , it was something physical.

I was just exerting so much of myself, my heart , um, and to not see progress was just so deflating. And maybe you've noticed this with other things. You have something you care about, you're putting in so much effort trying to get it right, working through it and nothing's happening. It just feels hard. Uh, and for some reason I, I continued to stay with it . I really wanted to get this right. And then one week something interesting happened.

I showed up on Monday, I went into, I went to roll with someone higher belt. I was a white belt, he was a blue belt and we went the full five minute session and he didn't tap me out and I got to the end of it. I didn't submit and I was like, Whoa, that was cool. I played it off. Cool. Like, like that normally happens . Went back to the sideline, took a sip of water, gave myself an internal Pat on the back and then went into another session. A lot of these were just back to back as what again?

Another blue belt. Someone ranked higher than me. Went through that five minutes and didn't get tapped out again. I said, wow, okay. Something's happening. Went back to the sideline though . The sip of water went back and this time I got tapped out. So it wasn't happening every time, but throughout the rest of that week what did happen is there were more and more experiences , um, of not getting submitted.

And there were, I , I heard these murmurings of these higher belts going, man, that, that guy, that white belt over there, he's got really good defense. Like I couldn't get, I couldn't get that arm bar on him. And sure enough, I, I started training with even higher belts, purple belts, Brown belts that really had a hard time submitting me now. I wasn't doing much offensively at this point. I wasn't getting any submissions of my own.

I'd basically spent five minutes just protecting myself, but that, that first month of showing up every day, getting my buck kicked, making mistakes, making perceived failures, and then getting thrown in an arm bar, getting thrown in a Kamora , getting, you know, an ankle lock and all of this, I just started to learn what to do and what not to do.

And it did create this Bulletproof defense where I had this new confidence where at least going into these, these sessions , um, that I, I could maybe get through to the end. Now, once I had that established, I'd say a week later I started noticing these opportunities where I could go more on the offense. And this is when I started getting submissions of my own, even sometimes tapping out that were higher than me.

In fact, in this two month period of training that summer, I did develop a reputation as someone in the school at that point that , um , had accelerated very quickly along the learning curve. Now I don't say that as a humblebrag, although I am proud of myself, I say it because I had to get my butt kicked quite a bit in order to develop that and that first month of training of just not getting it right, not getting it right, feeling defeated, wanting to go home.

All of that was teaching me and training me what to do and what not to do. And there was no other way around it. I was not going to learn how to keep my arms tucked in tight to my body without seeing a hundred times that when I stick my arm out, someone's going to grab it and put it in an arm bar . I had to learn that lesson over and over and over and over and over before it just became muscle memory to keep that close.

So all of those failures, the arm going out a hundred time is, is the only thing that taught me what I actually needed to do. And not just cognitively, but really got into into my body, the memory of it, the intuitive understanding of it. And it led to a really strong defense, at least in this school, that people had a very difficult time getting any submissions on me. But it's only because I got my butt kicked. So what does this have to do with you?

Well, if you're training in jujitsu right now, I hope you continue to stay with it and develop that defense. But for those of you who are not training in jujitsu, I'm sure you can resonate with something going on in your life right now that you're trying to get right and maybe struggling with or having what you might consider a lot of failures. They could be stuff with a relationship and falling into the same relationship pattern over and over and not being with the person you want to be with.

Or maybe you've taken on a new role in your , in your job or your work and you're not getting the best feedback early on or it's more negative or it feels like a struggle. Or maybe as a parent it just feels like there's a lot of failing.

Not saying the right things, not getting it right, so wherever you're at, whatever you're going through now or you might be going through in the future, I hope you can view it through the lens of the story I shared about my development with jujitsu and each time it feels like someone gets a submission on your, the world at large gets a submission on you. Instead of seeing that as a failure. See it as your learning opportunity. See it as the thing that is developing your defense.

The way that you're learning your normal patterns, your normal reactivities, like all the reasons why you fall into that relationship again or you're saying that thing at work and what was the feedback they gave you even though it hurt. What did they give you that maybe was helpful or useful that you can integrate and think about and try something different the next time. Or you yell at your kid and you say something you regret and you know you wish you didn't.

Can you, can you take that learning? Notice what it was like to go through that. See what do I need to know next time that happens for that not to happen and then try again. And it may , maybe you fail again and again and again, but each time we're going through that, we're learning more. We're developing a defense, if you will, from those things happening again. And this is quite literally the only way we can grow it is through your failures that you learn how to be the person you want to be.

It doesn't mean you have to like failing, but maybe see if you can embrace it a little more and trust it as part of the process of your own growth and development. After all, I'd see only way to get where you want to get. Thank you for your practice. I'll talk to you tomorrow and until then, take care. Hey, before you go, a couple of quick announcements.

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