#1648 When Failure Isn't Failure - Harps

being the better version of you. To fear failure is to fear the very process of learning, because without stumbling, without fucking up, without falling down, you can't really grow, learn, evolve, and move forward. At its core, failure serves as a mirror reflecting both our limitations and our potential. It's not a final verdict on our abilities, but rather an invitation

to assess, adapt, and improve. The most successful individuals in any field, whether that's science or sport, or art or business or any kind of personal endeavor, really are not those who avoid failure because we can't, but those who engage with it, learn from it, and use it as fuel of future efforts. What makes failure so uncomfortable is that it often comes with the sting of ego and self doubt and external judgment or what we think will

be external judgment, condemnation, criticism, and so on. It forces us to confront our vulnerability and imperfection in a society that quite often only celebrates the polished, victorious outcome, the winner. But the truth is that every visible success is built on an invisible foundation of countless setbacks, missteps. As I often say, fuck ups, failures, and rejections. Thomas Edison famously said I've not failed, I've just found ten thousand ways

that won't work. And this perspective that, of course, was when he was inventing the light bulb. This perspective redefines failure as part of the creative and problem solving process, a means to discover what works by understanding what doesn't what doesn't work. Failure can also serve as a clarifying force. It strips away false perceptions, superficial goals, and illusions of mastery, leaving us with a clearer sense of who we are

and what really matters for us. When we fail, we're compelled to ask hard questions, although some of us don't, but It gives us the opportunity to why did this happen? What can I learn here? Could I have done differently? What did I do well? What did I do not so well? What's the data telling me? What are my

results telling me? These questions, while uncomfortable, can lead to self awareness, growth, understanding, insight, awareness, resilience, or qualities that are important for not only eventual success, but also, broadly speaking, for navigating life's complexities, peaks and troughs, the mayhem, the mess, the joy of the pain, all of it. One of the most liberating realizations about failure is that it's not personal.

It doesn't define our worth or potential, although some people think it does, even though it often feels like it. We're not our failures. Rather, we're defined by how we respond to them, or we can be defined by that. Some of the world's most transformative leaders, thinkers, creators, it's monumental failures before they achieve their breakthrough. Steve Jobs after he got the boot from Apple? Did you know that he got the boot from Apple? The very company that

he founded. He went on to innovate and eventually come back to Apple and lead them to unprecedented heights. His failure became a catalyst for his latest success, refining his vision and resilience. In the end, failure is not something to be feared or shunned, but rather embraced as part of the process of becoming. It's a teacher, it's a guide, it's feedback, it's understanding, and sometimes it's a wake up call.

When we redefine failure as something else rather than a defeat, as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, you know, as a lesson, not a problem, then we unlock its potential to propel us forward, to make a stronger, wiser, more effective, more productive, more empowered. The paths of success is not a straight line, but a winding road marked by detours and setbacks. Each failure along the way is not the end of the journey, but a step closer to understanding, mastery,

and growth. When we learn to see failure through this lens, we can approach life with greater courage, knowing that it's not the failing that matters, it's the getting back up end of reading right. So, I've been fascinated with the idea of failure, which is seems like an ironic statement coming from someone who teaches people, or tries to teach people how to operationalize their talent and maximize their time and potential and to in general terms, to be successful.

But I think that failure is in many ways an idea, not a It's a subjective idea or interpretation. It's not so much a universal objective fact. And so if you think about, for example, let's let's say you and I. Let's say we both go for different times, not necessarily running together. Now let's say we do run together. So and you and I run, Let's say we run ten kilometers side by side. So we run ten k's and

we run in fifty two minutes. And for you, running ten kilometers right next to me in fifty two minutes is a failure. You're disappointed, You're frustrated. You may be even a little bit angry because you wanted to rub run a sub fifty minute time because you've done that before, and today next to me, you ran fifty two minutes. And so your story is I failed, and accordingly you

feel like you literally feel like a failure. Your feeling is real, and as a result, your literal experience is disappointment, sadness, frustration, and like I said, maybe you're even a little bit grumpy. And all of those feelings, all of those emotions disappoint

thess sadness, frustration, anger, they're real. They're real. On the other hand, conversely, at the same time you and I crossed the metaphoric finish line, at the same time, we run fifty two minutes, I do the same time as you, and I feel fucking amazing because the best I've ever run is fifty four minutes. So I've just beaten my PB by two minutes. I feel like a rock star. It's my best time ever. And while you and I had the same outcome in terms of time, we have

a totally different outcome in terms of experience. So we ran the same time, but we had different thinking. We ran the same time, but we told ourselves a different story. We ran the same time, and we had different self created experiences. Your story was I'm a failure. My story was I'm a winner. Maybe I should have put this the other way around to make you the winner in the story, but anyway, you know what I'm saying. And as a result, you genuinely feel like a failure, and

as a result, I genuinely feel like a winner. You have the experience of failure. I have the experience of minor rock star. And that is because I tell myself a story about an outcome that means absolutely nothing until I give it meaning. And the meaning I gave it is that I am a winner. I beat my PB by two minutes. I'm fucking amazing. This is a great Your story is the opposite of that. But both of our stories are just manufactured constructs that have very real

consequences and emotional, psychological, and physiological even ramifications. So failure is an interesting thing because what is failure. It is an idea. It's an idea. It's an idea that we have in our head about what are particular stimulus or event or outcome means. Let's say you and I are students. I'll make you the winner in this case. You and I are students, and you get your report card. We're doing grade six. I'm doing it for the third time.

You get your report card and there's eight subjects and you get eight bes, you get eight bees, and you feel dis pointed because you wanted eight a's or a pluses, because you're smart, you got eight bs. I've never even been close to a fucking B. You got eight bs, and by my standards, that's an amazing outcome, but you were I'm also not making you the winner again, am I? Anyway? And in this scenario, you get eight bes and you're disappointed because you wanted eight d's. I conversely, I passed

every subject, which I've never done before. I got eight ds. Sure, that's way worse than what you got, but for me it's fucking winning because I've never passed all of my subjects ever. And even though it's a scraping through pass, it's just a pass. My average mark was fifty three or whatever. In this story, Nonetheless, I feel great, Why because I have a different story about the outcome. I have a different story about what a D means. You

have a different story about what a B means. Once again, Once again, this is another clear example of when I tell my story about something that is meaningless until I give it meaning. When I tell myself a story and I believe the story, then that story becomes my literal experience. I am a failure, I am a winner. And sometimes and while I understand all of this, and I'm not saying therefore you should do this, therefore, I'm not saying

what you should or shouldn't do. What I'm trying to do is open the door on this kind of level of awareness here that well, maybe in the middle of maybe in the middle of the failures, you know there, Like I said a minute ago when I was reading that piece, maybe there are some stories, there are some lessons, there's some growth, there's some development, there's some insight, there's

some understanding. So in a way I didn't get the result that I want or expected or hopeful, but nonetheless growth came out of it, or growth can come out of it. Therefore, maybe maybe it's okay. I don't want to bore you with the story about the development of this show, but most of you know, before the U Project, I did three other podcasts. They didn't work in inverted comments, and by it didn't work, I mean commercially. So we had an audience. It wasn't huge, but it was okay.

And one of my goals was for it to become at the very least self sustaining financially, so it wasn't costing me money. I wasn't going backwards on every episode because I was paying for it to be edited and so on, and for all three of those. I'm not talking about episodes. I'm talking about shows with multiple episodes under the banner of each show, maybe two hundred episodes over time. They didn't work in inverted commers, and by

that I just mean it wasn't a commercial success. And what's interesting for me is maybe maybe because I'm dumb, But in the middle of all of that, I never thought, fuck, I'm a failure. I didn't think I'm failing. I was frustrated. I was never really angry. I was frustrated, but at the same time, I kind of had an awareness that I'm figuring out what doesn't work. So for me, it was research and development. For me, it was insight and awareness. It was trying to understand the art and the science

and the skill of podcasting. And I kept getting better. I went from a one out of ten to a four or a three, you know, but I was improving, I was learning. I was evolving right even though and then, and as you know most of you know, then the U projects started six or so years ago, and again it was like it was just an uphill battle. And if my objective was to make money, and that's winning

and not making money as losing or failing. Then I was losing for the first three shows that I did, and then I was losing for that two hundred episodes or something, and then I was losing for the first six hundred or so episodes of the You Project, which in total all of that stuff was probably four years

and probably collectively about eight hundred episodes. But at no time did I feel like a failure, because even though I wasn't making money, and even though the show wasn't breaking even I still felt like I was producing something good. I still felt like I was getting better and so. And by the way, I'm not saying, you know that another person who went through the same I guess outcome or the same result would feel the same as me.

Some people like the reality is too is that I think I can't remember if it's three or seven, but it's a very low number. The amount of people who start a new show, the amount of actual episodes that they do you can google. I think it's below ten. It's definitely below ten. It's either three or seven, I think.

But so many people could build a world class podcast if they worked, if they persevered, if they did more than three episodes or ten episodes or in my case eight hundred and now we're in the sixteen hundreds and it's a week the best podcast in the world. No, but we going okay? And do I understand podcasting? And do I understand the audience? And do I understand distribution and production and brand? And do I understand building a tribe around? Well? I have a way to go, but

I know so much more. And now I have a thing that is, you know, partner with a really big organization in Australia and over entertainment. We have, you know, better and worse months financially, but we're never going backwards, which is good. Some months it's really lucrads, some months not so much. But the bottom line is it's commercially viable. But I had to go through all of that learning and growing and evolving. I don't ever think to myself, fuck,

I've failed for four years. I don't think like that now. And I think it's important to just be conscious of the way that we label our outcomes. Having said that, I'm not suggesting that we should pretend that we're going great when we're not. I think we also need to be practical and realistic and there will be times when you know, we do have to pull the pin or there will be and obviously you know you will figure out,

you'll figure out when that is. But I know that I know that for many people that I've worked with who are now what we would call, I guess in their field success stories, I know that for some of those people that the success they now enjoy was preceded by ten, fifteen, in even twenty years of just fucking grinding and slogging and doing the work and showing up and then sometimes not so long, of course, but then eventually their product or their service, or their music or

their restaurant or their podcast or their whatever it was caught fire and they build something amazing. But it's you know, to me, it's analogous to the martial artist who goes to the dojo or to the jiu jitsu academy and gets his ass handed to him for five years before he's got any significant level of competence or skill or understanding or proficiency at one of the hardest things that you can become, which is a black belt in jiu jitsu,

for example. So sometimes it's just about showing up. Sometimes it's about reframing, you know. Sometimes it's about going, Okay, I got eight d's. That's pretty good for me. And I'm not trying to undersell obviously, this is a story. I'm not trying to say so set or for a crap,

I'm not saying that. But depending on what's in your rearview mirror, for some people passing eight subjects, even if they're all these, it's an amazing fucking outcome and they should be proud while still being ambitious and perhaps wanting to do better and be better moving forward. But right now, for that kid, right now that gets that report card with eight passes on eight subjects and they've never done that, that's a fucking amazing achievement and for them, literally, that

is a version of success. While for somebody else, dependent on their expectations and what's in their rearview mirror, their story might understandably be this is a dismal failure either way. Either way it is a subjective interpretation of some numbers or or an objective outcome. There is here, are these things written on this paper. It has what or this report card or this email or whatever it is, it has the meaning and influence and power in your life,

particularly that you give it. And I think you know that when we reframe this stuff, we don't pretend we're going great when we're not. We're not delusional, we don't have our head in the sand. We go. I did fuck that up. That was no good, you know. And there are lots of times where I've fucked up, lots of things I've done, speaking gigs that were terrible. You know,

I've I spent you know what's interesting. When I was the morbidly OBEs kid, I went to a school in La Trovali called Saint Paul's College, which later became Catholic Regional College. Shout outs all the homies from down there. And by the way, there was no horrible hardship for me. I actually quite enjoyed school, despite being but the fattest kid for most of my school or for a lot

of my early school there. But you know, one of my stories or one of my experiences was cross country runs every week or a lot of weeks in year seven, in year eight, when I was morbid obese and one hundred plus kids, and every week I would come last or pretty much last, generally last, because I couldn't run because I was too heavy. I was too big, I had no fitness, and I came. If there was generally one hundred and thirty kids, I would come one hundred

and thirtieth. And whatever the distance was, I think it was somewhere around three to five k's. I think it was more like five. I would walk and I would walk, and I would get back in an hour later, which would be forty minutes after the first kids got back, and so on. But what was interesting was, while you know, I guess I wasn't proud of my result, I didn't

really I didn't feel like a failure. Maybe I should have, I don't know, but I didn't fit, so you know, there was a bit of embarrassment around my weight and all of those things. But you know, I just knew that I knew why that was happening. You know, I knew why I was walking not running, and I knew why I was up the back. And you know, for better or worse, I didn't beat myself. I didn't go home going fucking hell, I'm a loser, I'm a failure. To me, it was just an outcome. It was just

a result. And I guess, deep down I knew that if I ever really wanted to apply myself and get fit and lose weight that I could change that, which eventually I did. You know so, and I mean think about, Oh yeah, I just thought of this. What about think about and I don't I'm not making any judgment here, but think about what was her name? What was her name? Reygun? Reagun? Is her name Reygun? From the Olympics? You know. So

there's no aspersions here, there's no judgment here. But objectively, I think she got zero points, and I think her the person she was competing against, got fifty something points or whatever. Let's not get into the the judgment of her performance as a as an expression of breakdancing or whatever.

I'm sure she's way better than I would ever be. Right. Nonetheless, what I found interesting was like just the forget the feelings, the opinions, none of that, no opinion, no feeling, just the objective result was I think it was like fifty something points to zero. Well as a measurable outcome, she got fucking smashed. Nonetheless, I don't think and good on her. I don't think she felt like a failure and I

don't think. I'm not suggesting she should have either. By the way, I'm just interested in the psychology around that outcome for her and what was And I don't know. I haven't spoken to her, and I've only watched as much as you've watched, probably maybe less, But I'm just fascinated with wow. So this is what we objectively know. She went to the Olympics. She didn't get a great result, clearly,

and there's been international whatever around that. Let's not make it any better or worse, right, But just what interests me is not whether or not she should have gone or not gone, or heard breakdancing skills. That doesn't interest me. What interests me is the psychology around her response. Now, maybe I don't know, but maybe you know, it's like maybe her mindset is I went there, I did my best, and I got a particular outcome, and maybe she's fine

with it. I don't know. Maybe the public persona is different to the personal reaction and experience behind closed. But you know, whatever the outcome is, whether it's regaun, whether it's you know, you and me going on a run, whether or not it's a school report, whether or not it's you know, many times early days I did speaking gigs that if I'm you know, being as objective as I can be, which is not very because my view and understanding of the world is subjective because it's me,

especially when it's me assessing me. But as objective as I can be. Some of my early days speaking performances, corporate speaking or public speaking or paid speaking, I think some of them were really a two or a three out of ten. Where I really I was somewhere between fucking terrible and not very good. But you know, back then, I was a white belt. Back then I was figuring out how do I be a professional speaker? How do

I build rapport and connection? How do I talk to an audience, How do I understand what it is like for an audience to be in front of me? What is the mix of preparation and kind of intuition, Like do I use slides? Do I use video? How prepared should I be? And how in the moment organic storytell a funny guy? Should I be or not be? What's

going to work? It was all of the outcomes that I created, ranging from terrible to okay in the early days, all of the outcomes that I created, all of the experiences that I had in the middle of that, All of those for me were literally training. They were going to the gym. In inverted commas, they were going to the speaking gym and working out and learning and growing and developing skill and understanding and strength and resilience and

insight and situational awareness and social and emotional intelligence. And the reason that I became hopefully, I'm not terrible. Now. Let's I hope that I'm better than a two or three. I don't want to give myself a number, but I think I'm not terrible at my job anymore. But the reason that I now do a lot of corporate speaking, the reason that I get a lot of work in that space, is because I spent all of those years learning, not failing learning anyway, team there it is failure failure,

lesson learning growth. You choose