Failure - Counting Lessons not Losses with Jordan Kosnick CDO of Northwestern Mutual Kosnick Financial Group

And today we're going to talk about failure. But before we do a couple quick things, I've been shouting out our golf outing. We're raising money for childhood cancer research. And the big thing here for us is to raise over $80,000 in the summer. Towards that event, we've been able to donate over $130,000 to Uwu Carbone cancer research center here in Madison, Wisconsin. And we want to bring some more money back to those great people doing great work.

So please go to www.drivingoutchildhoodcancer.com. Again, that's www.drivingoutchildhoodcancer.com we do have a few golf spots open and as always looking for sponsors. Secondly, um, we're doing a podcast, a Jordan Knight together. A couple of hours ago we found out our grandfather died. So we're doing this with heavy hearts today.

Uh, he's the person that taught us how to shoot BB guns, how to collect shells and find shark's teeth on the beach, and probably most importantly taught us how to love to the very end and be a devoted spouse and husband. So this one's for you, grandpa. All right. Before we get are now getting into today. Want to talk about failure? And before we asked Jordan some questions before he popped some questions back to me. Uh, let's talk a little bit about failure.

It's always gotten a bad rep and more and more Reesie Uber successful people, celebrities, we're not talking about failures, their secrets to success. And that really sounds like an oxymoron. But in reality, consistent failure is more indicative to future success than almost any other factor. And we're going to talk a lot about that today. The important part is how you, the person define failure.

That way, failure doesn't discourage you but motivates you because you know you are now one step closer to your goal. So as we discussed this today we're going to talk about some building blocks and how we go about a visualizing failure here, what we learn. And uh, we hope to that all of you start seeing these mini failures or even large failures as building blocks that help you win in the long run. So today, Jordan, we're going to start with why.

In your opinion, you think failure is a bad thing or how most people think failure's a bad thing. I know you personally don't, but what do you think most people's thoughts are as they're going through and thinking about failure of their own failures, many or large?

Most people, if you think about, uh, growing up as an athlete, losing a game in front of a crowd of people wasn't a fun thing to do, right? We both played sports growing up and losing was definitely not our favorite thing. And losing typically feels like a failure, right? So I think for most people, they associate, uh, losing and failure as, uh, in, in whatever sport or extracurricular that they're doing as failing in life.

And, and so I think most people associate that a failure as a, as a bad thing. And so as you mentioned in the Intro, um, most successful people in, in, in the influencers that are out there today are really promoting failure as the key to success. And I think the reason is, is because you're that much closer to the way it works that much closer to the strategy that actually gets you to accomplishing whatever goal you might have.

Um, if you didn't go through those, as you mentioned, many fit miniature failures or that big failure. And, and I'm excited to talk about a few of the ones that, uh, that, that I know you and I have had in the past that have gotten us to where we are today. If you didn't have those, you wouldn't be who you are. And so everything that you do, success or failure makes you who you are.

And I think most people like to forget about the not so good things at the times where they lost a game or they, they came up short a and only remember and internalize the, the, the good things or the, the successes that they had.

Yeah. Like so I have noticed that something happens to a family member or somebody talks about a struggle that they're having. A lot of times they get to actually get more love and likes on Facebook or whatever it might be because I think everyone's so used to pictures of everyone's smiling and their vacations and all this stuff. The highlight reel that like you put it. So when something gets put on there that's, that's uh, somebody being vulnerable, I think it actually gets more traction.

It's true. Our version of knows that I think about in the past couple of years I've had birth of Camden Yup. And then have death of father in law. And I think between those two posts, those would be the most liked or commented on, were attracted to post. Um, so it's interesting, but you're not, not even that drastic. We have things that happen on a daily basis, on a, on a very minute scale. Why do people avoid trying them? Yeah, it's a good question.

I think, I think it's that fear of failure and so many people, as I mentioned before, few fear, the embarrassment that, that, that they believe are, that they perceive comes along with failure. Um, and you know, one of the things that I wanted to mention is, uh, and I know I'm an author that we, we, we like here is Bernay Brown. She talks about stepping into the arena, right?

I like to think about the, the analysts of sports and all the people that talk about the sports and um, criticize or analyze the, the athletes and uh, or even critics about movies and art and things like that. And they have a very important job and it takes talent to do that. But at the same time, you know, the person that's stepping into the arena, right? Put yourself into the arena and actually try and in that in and of itself is a win, right?

Just stepping into it, put, putting yourself out there, um, is a win because you're seeing what is what you're capable of, what you can do a, what you need to learn from your performance or, uh, you know, what you need to do better, things of that nature. If you don't do that, you don't learn any of those things. So I know something that you've, you've, uh, maybe not taught me, but certainly, uh, drilled home for me is if you either win or you or you learn, right?

And so if you think about it that way, you don't think I'm a failure as a failure. You think of it as a lesson. Yeah.

And it talked about, uh, in an event, whether your child is on a soccer field or in a, um, a musical or whatever it may be, that you're applauding their effort, not the wins and losses, not scoring the goal, but rather the effort that went into that or a certain things like that. And I think that our dad was really good at that and uh, you know, whether we won or lost there, he would always be right there to actually applaud certain efforts. Right.

And then what were the learning lessons from those? I remember the first, first time I stood on the football field and a game and short game action cause I was a soccer player up until eighth grade. First I didn't get to play peewee like you and Jake and uh, step out there and we ran an offense. There was two titans, no wide receiver. Well I wanted to be a receiver, so tight end was the only position. Uh, so I line up on the line three point stance and the defensive end put me on my ass.

I mean just, just bowled me over. I was like, well welcome to football, but you bounce right back up. Well that was embarrassing. Got To get back. Okay, not going to happen again next time I go and block him. And he knew exactly what I was coming. You knew I was embarrassed. He saw it or the gist of my demeanor or whatever. I was gonna try hard. He just throws me by the wayside and it goes right by me again. So now it's working on technique and learn lessons.

Okay. First time got bowled over a second time. He just breeze right by me through me. Down over aggressive maybe. Yeah. It was over aggressive in it to try to make up for that time where I just got bowled over. And so it was just lesson learned, lesson learned. By the third time it was, okay, now I'm in a groove. Now I'm actually able to do my assignment that I was taught in practice that we practiced over and over and over again.

But it just reminded me of, you know, recall the dad was there and he's like, kind of chuckled. And I said, so how that feels not good. It was embarrassed, but uh, he's like, well, I really applaud, you know, are you getting back up and make sure, making sure that you, you played, he's like, you played her great rest of the game.

So great job in all the work it's taken, um, for, for you to put in to perform the way you perform today.

When I dropped my girls off in the morning, I say, I love you. Have a great day and be a leader.

And so then what we say today, oh, some of that stubbornness, some of that, you know, misbehavior is actually going to be what makes you successful, Josh. But if it were, our daughter is growing up, we wouldn't say the same thing. How would we say it to that? Right, right. We'd probably say, Hey, you need to behave. Right. You need to, you need to be good. You need to be quiet. I need to be nice.

And not that those things are bad, but they certainly don't help necessarily in business or in certain things that they might want.

Um, and uh, so there wasn't much to mom and dad hadn't seen after me going through the line there. But, uh, but in, in business, well in sports and everything, I tried almost every sport.

Um, you and I were talking the other day about the diving example when I was a, and I'm sure the audience when I was, uh, probably eight years old or something, I tried diving for the first time I was on the swim team or swim team and tried diving and I think we needed four dives so I can do a front die of a back dive and a front dive with a half twist. So I needed a fourth dive. And so they're trying to teach me a flip. And so we had our first dive mead and, uh, I still hadn't gotten the flip.

I was still scared as hell of landing on my back and smacking. And so in the meat, I chose to pretend to slip off the board to literally fall into the water headfirst. So I didn't smack. And the dive coach comes up to her, it after in our, from our long swim under water to the side of the pool. Embarrassed. Uh, and so what happened? I was, I slept, I know full well damn well I did not slip. I purposely chose that instead of actually trying to do the flip.

Now fast forward years later I stuck with diving and uh, I was doing two and a half flips in, in dive meets. And I remember the first time doing that. It's like the first time you throw on a tee shirt or a sweatshirt because you know you're probably gonna over-rotate under rotate and smack. Well then that teacher is or gets wet. It had serves zero purpose anymore snow.

Y'All just take it off and you're going to do it so and, and you're almost get it and you almost get them to like move people all the way to get back on the board, get back on the board, get back in the board. And actually finally do it. And there's, there's this euphoria.

So I think the biggest key to you know, long story short here or long story long maybe, um, is that I was willing to try over and over again, um, go through some embarrassments, go through some, uh, failures, uh, publicly and privately and uh, be able to come out on top through continuous learning. And so I think the other piece of that that, uh, that I want to key in on for the audience's experience alone isn't a good teacher. It's actually evaluated experience becomes a great teacher.

You have to have reflective think time. And, uh, we actually talked about this on the podcast last week with a Roger Sipe is, uh, actually reflecting on your learnings, having reflection time when you fail, when you have a

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If I have a thought, let's say I'm in the shower and I get those theta brainwaves and I'm going through all of these different thoughts when I get out of the shower, I get on my iPad immediately. So I don't lose that thought and put it into that file. Whether, whether it was for my business coach, whether it's for you, that it's something that I needed to talk to someone about. Their wasn't immediate or urgent, uh, but needed to be talked to about her. I wanted feedback on or wanted to discuss.

So having a system like that, whereas a, okay, so if I schedule in reflective thing time, maybe once a week. Okay. So the, I, I don't know that it's practical daily. Um, it could be depending on someone's schedule, but, uh, let's say once a week where we have an hour or two where you can shut off all the noise and be able to ask yourself that question.

And maybe the question is, someone made me feel a type of way, what about that person or about what they said to me or did to me is making me feel that way. Yep. And then on the loss side of things to get to the next spot, um, how this just came to mind? Uh, I love when someone tells me I can't do something that is my favorite, one of my most motivating things possible.

Um, so in some of my time I've actually thought of, I've actually pictured the enemy like the opponent, but I put a face to it, um, to make sure that I stayed motivated on certain things like that. And it doesn't necessarily stick with me forever, but those certain things that I'll do, like roller games that I'll play because I'm competitive to be able to in reflective thinking time actually label things and be able to come compartmentalize things, uh, for future reference.

But I think that reflective thing time is really, really crucial. Once a week. Um, pro, I'd start with if you can get to daily meditation, I think that's what a lot of the experts are really saying. No. And I will admit, fully admit that I'm not great at that. And uh, but I think at least once a week is a good starting point. Yeah.

Um, how many people did you see, how many phone calls did you make? How many referrals did you get a, and so you're looking, you're reflecting upon your day, what happened in that day? Good or bad, how did I do? And then planning for the day ahead. And so in and of itself, it is a way of self reflecting and being aware of how your day went.

Um, because you're likely, it's almost impossible to not have some of those roof self awareness and self reflective thoughts when you, you're like, hey man, I only made this amount of dials and I know I should have made this amount or I should have set this amount of meetings and I only set this amount or vice versa. Hey, I killed it today. I should, I should be proud of today. And you know, what did I do today? What was my morning routine like? What, what did I eat for breakfast? Right?

What Ha, what was special about today that allowed me to kill it? Or was it just one of those days where I was on point? Right? But taking note of some of those things that happen on the days that you crushed it. Um, and the posting planning that we teach all of our advisors to do daily, whether they do it or not, we teach them to do a daily is extremely valuable as, um, as a self reflective tool that we're talking about. That's a good point. I can't believe I didn't think of that.

Culture wounds. Yeah. Yeah.

So what are some of your strategies or conversations like?

We talk about you riding the rollercoaster and it shouldn't be so up and down. It shouldn't be so volatile. You really want to level that out. And so, um, having a bias towards action. And uh, one of my, uh, it was actually the, so my same role in the agency or the firm that I started with, the, she'd felt an officer in that role. Something I got from him, uh, was this concept and we broke it down to, uh, basically just the Nike sign, sir, the Nike slogan.

So I used to put the Nike sign above my, my phone in my cube when I first started. For those of those, for those of you living under a rock is just do it, just do it.

It'd be the slogan for Nike and, and the, the reason I did that or the, the thought behind that was when I knew I needed to do something or when I was sitting in my cube or wherever it was, and I was thinking about something, the, the only thing that would get over maybe that anxiety or that, that, that the worry that I had or the fear of rejection that I had was taking action. And so there's a lot of concepts out there.

One of the most popular ones I know you're a fan of is the five second rule. But essentially I was doing the five second rule without, without knowing it, by putting that, just do it slogan above my or the Nike symbol above my phone. And he just kept telling me, he's like, Jordan, you have great ideas. You're smart. You know what you're doing, you're charismatic, you just need to act. You just need to go and do what you know you're capable of doing.

And so it was cool to have somebody that believed in me, right? And told me like, you got this, you just need to do it. And so I take that, that lesson and, and, and I apply it with the people that I coach. Um, I think there is a lot of, and I talk about putting care into your character, right? So if you care about people and you show that in a way, we talked a little bit about that in our, in our last podcast, and you show that you care about people, then you're showing your character in that.

And so, so that's my would be my first step is showing them that I care and then leading with action and have it and telling them to have a bias towards action. When you start to feel anxious about something or when you start to feel, or let's say that that's something is this person that I'm calling is smarter than me, they're more successful than me. I'm scared to call them because maybe they know more than me about this stuff. Right?

Well, the only thing that's going to get you over that anxiety, well I should say that the most effective or efficient way to get over that anxiety is to do or to act upon whichever, whatever is making you anxious. Right? So if that phone call is what's making you anxious, the only thing that's gonna get you over that anxiety is picking up the damn phone and making that phone call. Otherwise you would go to bed thinking about it. Right? Well, what Fr. Why? Why didn't I make that phone?

But the, the lay person, the average person, you don't feel like working out, but how great do you feel after your workout? So the point is just to do it

Why do you think failure's scares people so much?

And I was that really the case? Maybe she had a boyfriend, maybe she didn't find your tractor. Ma, there could be a zillion different reasons. She said no to your advance, but you take that so personally. And sometimes I've seen even a guy's lash out at the person that just rejected them. Like you really think that helped the situation rather than going to get her number now. Like that's just ridiculous.

But, uh, but I think that going back to your question there is we take it as a personal attack or a personal failure.

And that goes for personal relationships to business relationships is that people that really connect with you people and are really recognize your value, they're going to be attracted to you, not detractive. Yeah. From you

And then even philosophically as you're saying, people are attaching that their identity to the fact that they're overweight in reality, that has nothing to really do with them. They have fat on them, they are not fat. Right? Right. And so I think about that and I think that's a really good point that you bring up is that we are not our failures. We are not our successes either. We are who we are. Those just happened to be, uh, you know, things that we've done.

That's who you are, not, are not your successes, not your failures. Figure that out and then you'll be able to move forward a lot faster. So the three H's just want to finish that point so we don't lose it. Humble, who am I hungry? Where do I want to go and hustle? How will I get there? And if you can identify with those, uh, you'll get out of fear a lot quicker.

And, um, the, the tough thing about it as well is that, uh, after you take the exam, the way the CFP exam works now is they don't tell you whether you passed or failed right away. So I had to wait about a month to find out. And so I went in and, and truthfully, after taking it, I was pretty sure that I did not pass. It was, it's pretty difficult exam. Um, but I thought, you never know. And I, I could've, you know, on the ones that I wasn't 100% sure on, maybe I got really good.

We're really lucky and guessed the right, the right answer. Um, and so once I found out, I guess the good thing in the fact that I had to wait was that I a lot of time to process like, okay, well, if I fail, you know, here, here's who I am here. Here's what I can do here. Here's how it hurts me. Here's how it doesn't hurt me. I had a lot of time to really process that. And so, so when I did find out, I don't think I was as hurt in the moment.

Um, but it took a couple of days for me to come to the conclusion that like, as I said before, I was just happy that I put myself in the arena. I was just happy that all of that study time and all of the, the effort that I put into learning these concepts, learning about and working on mastering my craft, um, it, it didn't go to waste just because I didn't accomplish it this time. Right.

I still have all of that effort and time and studying and, and, uh, knowledge now, um, it just, as much as I would've if I happened to have passed it, right? And so for me, I, I learned that I, I didn't do enough, right? I didn't study enough or I didn't study the right things are in the right way and I know what to do and moving forward to get it passed in the future. And so I looked back on that. And I think a lot of people are a lot of, yeah, a lot of people really get discouraged about that.

And, and the, I think the weird thing for me was is that even though yeah, it Kinda hurt. I was more encouraged than I was discouraged this time. And I've, I've failed a lot of tests in my, in my professional career. Um, but this one was probably the first time where I was like, you know what, I'm just proud that I put myself out there and I'm actually really encouraged to go take it again at some point in the future. Cause I know what I need to do to get it passed. And it was good.

I mean your world at the next time. So in wrapping up today, there was a question that you'd love to ask in the interview process when you're interviewing people that are wanting to give people a knowledge of the, to tell you a joke or tell me a joke. No, no, not, sorry, not that one that puts people on the spot. I'm talking about the question you have to ask her about winning versus losing. Um, I'm actually not remembering which one you're talking about.

We're talking about or do or you think you would go if you got it. Go. Is it, are you a starter or a starter or a finisher? That one. Yeah, maybe that's how it was remembering it. Yeah. I thought was about winning and losing,

Because you want to have somebody that can start things that you want to have. You got to make sure that you finish as well. Yeah. Wow, that's really good. So in closing, I want to read a stat for, for folks, because maybe some of you have actually read about the top five regrets of people dying or something of that nature in a lot of them are about regret of inaction. So I want to put some stats to that.

In the short term, we tend to regret our actions more than our inaction by emerging and 53% of 47% but over the long term, towards the end of our lives, it is inactions. We would read more than actions by 84% to 16% that is a huge margin. And so on. People to remember that as you go out there as at the end of your life, you're going to remember things you didn't do versus things you did regret wise. So you're going to regret not spending more time with your kids.

You're going to regret not taking that shot at that job or starting your own business or whatever it may be. That's inaction versus action that you're going to regret more. So everybody stay hungry, stay humble and hustle out there. Uh, I want to remind you to follow us on Instagram at, at Josh Kosnik. That is at J. O. S. H. K. O. S. N. I. C. K. Love to connect with you.

I would love some ideas on podcasts, guests that you'd like to us to have on or any, uh, future topics you'd like Jordan Knight argue about. We can do that as well. Maybe doing a little brother versus brother.