There's No Such Thing as Failure
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
One of the most impactful interviews I have ever listened to is Ed Mylett’s interview with Shaun White.
Shaun White is an Olympic gold medal winning snowboarder and skateboarder. In the interview, Shaun talks about how he cultivates a mindset where in every situation, there is no such thing as failure for him. For example, if he’s in a snowboarding competition and the competitor before him falls, he gets excited because he’s now going to look really good in comparison if he doesn’t fall. However, if the competitor before him lands a trick that no one has ever done before, Shaun also gets excited because that competitor showed him a new possibility of what human’s can do on a board, and he knows that he can break down the trick and learn it himself for the future. So no matter what happens, Shaun White doesn’t fail or lose. He either succeeds or he learns.
As a person who grew up in the American education system, I was not taught to find the win in every situation. You either pass or fail. You get an A or an F. You win or you lose. So when I heard Shaun talk about his mindset, it was so refreshing and it also made so much sense. I started to look back at my life and realize that the times when I made the biggest mistakes were the times when I learned the most. My worst relationships taught me more than my best relationships. Times when I fell short of what I wanted to do helped to spur me into working to better myself more than times when I was doing fine. I started to see that each of the “failures” in my own life had taught me valuable lessons every time, and the concept of failing became a mirage.
So now I go into situations looking for my way to win no matter what happens, and it saves me so much time worrying if I will fail in my endeavors. And the freedom I feel to try new things because there’s no such thing as failure anymore in my life has created a courage in me that I would wish for all my fellow human beings.
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Sincerely Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team