It's time to rip the cover off what really works to ditch addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, and all other kinds of human suffering. No, not sobriety. We're talking the F-word here: Freedom. We'll share, straight from the trenches, what we have learned from leaving our own addictions behind, and coaching hundreds of others to do the same—and since it's such a heavy topic, we might as well have a good time while we're at it. [00:27.6]
Bob: Welcome back, guys, it’s time to talk about failure today. We've probably talked about this before, but I want to take you through if you're willing and experience of looking into your own life to maybe get rid of, or change your perspective on what failure is or isn't hopefully, I mean, it's possible that this very episode could change radically change your relationship to the things that you used to fear of being afraid of. It's possible, okay. So here we go. Some time ago, a couple of years ago, I composed a medley of Christmas tunes to play in church. They asked me to do a special number, so I composed a little medley and then I put it together and I played in church. I think it's still on my Facebook profile, its from a couple years ago and I played it in church and I, and I had it down really well. I even played it on Facebook and I was fine. And then I went to church and I got up and this happened frequently to me still. [01:25.7]
I got up and I sat down at the piano and I went to play and already, my heart is thumping so fast that you could have sworn that there was a lion in the room who's just growling and hunting me down or like a tiger that's shooting out at subsonic, a little frequency that starts to paralyze its prayer or something. And I start playing and my fingers get cold., all of the blood's rushing out of my extremities to protect my, my insides. And my fingers starts shaking, so there's a couple pieces in the middle where like, it's hard for me to breathe and my breathing is caught up and I'm having a hard time hitting the notes really confidently. And, you know, give me up to talk in front of people as you may well have noticed by now not a problem. I'll just talk, talk, talk, not a big deal. Singing musical stuff, performances like that, that are “supposed to be” a certain way, those performances have become a little bit more difficult. Why? Because of a fear of failure. [02:30.4]
Have you ever had a fear of failure? Now it may show up in various forms. Our clients that we work with not being good enough, disappointing others, failing making mistakes, and being afraid of messing it up for other people or hurting other people. Being afraid of getting hurt themselves. All of these are manifestations of a basic fear of what we could call failure. Mess ups, screw ups, mistakes. Thickheadedness whatever you want to call it, whatever your parents called it, whatever you've called it through your life, that's what we want to work on today. Cause see here, as you go through life and you're experiencing this fear of failure, fear of hurting other people and whatnot, it starts to control your biological functions. I mean, this is why when sometimes Bill Cosby's famous thing, you know, when his mom used to have him bring an extra pair of underwear, when he'd go on trips, he's like just in case you get in an accident and Bill Cosby goes I thought that's what an accident was. [03:25.6]
You know, you're driving down the road, you see two headlights go on the wrong way and they're not yours and you're in their lane. And then first you say it and then you deal with it. Wont you have clean underwear in case you get in an accident? The thing is it affects your biological functions, your heartbeats, a certain way, your breathing changes your organs function a different way. Your muscles start or stop functioning in certain ways, you urinate your pants. All kinds of stuff can happen, when fear shows up, including very muddled thinking, imprecise thinking, more mistakes than you wouldn't would make if you had just been relaxed and snowball effects of all kinds of stuff. So, it's natural that people would be afraid of it. But why did we develop a fear of failure? Where did we come up with the idea of failure in the first place? That's a good question. I got up there and I played the piano and behind my playing of the piano was me looking at all the people who learned to play the piano when, not when they were, when I was younger and I didn't learn, I still don't read music. I play by ear. You could say, I just kind of play around and play what feels right. [04:32.8]
And I actually love that way of playing. And I'm not interested in learning to only read music now, but at the time growing up, everybody learned to read music, that was how you learned to play the piano. There wasn't anybody playing by ear. So, I couldn't read music and they could play faster. They could play better. And in college, Oh, the girls loved the guys that could play the piano. Maybe I went to college in a weird place, but it seemed like everybody had piano lessons as a kid and the girls loved it. And then I had, of course, like a friend, his name is Nathan Pacheco, kind of a semi famous singer in some circles. And he would wander around with his guitar and serenade the ladies and I couldn't play the guitar either. And I wanted to learn to play the guitar. Oh dear. And it was all like my entire future with women was riding on this and my approval of other people. Why do I need approval of other people? Because when I was growing up, just like every other kid, just like you, you needed your parents to approve of what you were doing, so you could have privileges. [05:32.0]
If you did something they didn't like, then punishments happened. Some of them not even related to what you did. Like you stick your, you know, your take your sister's toy and she smacks you. Okay, cool. That happened. But then your parents’ ground, you that's an extra punishment, that is not a cause and effect related. We do this to our kids all the time. And so many of us have this impending feeling of doom in our lives because we're used to having a punishment that's not related to what's happening. Just fly out of the sky, whenever our parents are in a bad mood. But when they're in a good mood, they don't actually punish us. It's like a crapshoot. So, we wander around with this feeling like, Oh no, there's something I'm going to do wrong. There's some cosmic way that things are supposed to happen. And if it doesn't happen that way, then bad things might happen to me. But I don't know what that way is. So, I start to get nervous and I start to second guess myself. And every time we have somebody who doesn't like, what we do, we start to second guess ourselves. So, it's natural that we would have a fear of getting something wrong. [06:28.6]
And for me, the piano is an easy way cause you can always hear a bum note. And when I play it wrong, it just feels like everyone's going to be that nice face where on the, on the surface they're like, Oh, that was such a good song. And on the underside, they're like, Oh my gosh, well I want to encourage him. I want to give him a catastrophic compliment so that he feels good about himself. If you don't know what I'm talking about, listen to the episode a few weeks ago, we talked about that. Okay. So, I was really nervous. Look, that's just one simple example, building a business, it's taken a long time. I, I have gone slower than most of the people I know of. Not necessarily because that's right or wrong, but a lot of the slowness of the growth of my own business and my ability to help more and more people came because I was afraid of doing it wrong sometimes. I couldn't recognize it at the time, so it took me a while to figure it out and then dismantle that. But a lot of it boils down to some way of doing it wrong, having bad repercussions, getting a failure of some sort that either might affect us financially or emotionally or spiritually or something else like that. [07:35.5]
There's so many things. Why didn't I like resolve things with my wife earlier? Well, because I was afraid of failure. Why didn't I tell my wife about the pornography stuff and whatnot earlier on than I did? Well, because I was afraid, she would leave me. Why did I keep it hidden as long as I did before? Well, because in church I was taught that it was horrible. And I was afraid that if people found out then like nobody would like me and all kinds of bad stuff would happen and I was already afraid that I'd failed for eternity. So, I was just trying not to fail on this planet too. Like I had, this is a really raw emotional topic ironically for me today. This is cool. I have like tears in my eyes right now, as I'm talking about it. This was a real fear for me. This fear of failure. Do you have those two, have you had events in your life where you learned that failure is bad, where that failure will kill you? That failure will remove all kinds of positive privileges or opportunities for you in the future. Where in your life did you learn that failure actually exists? [08:34.0]
And could it possibly be that it was just growing up. You saw it, you heard people talk about it. And people talked about this invisible thing called failure, right? So, one way to look at that is yes, there is such a thing called failure. It exists in the world. And if you are it, or if you do it, this thing, then what happens is all kinds of bad stuff follows, follows after it. That's one way to look at it, but another way to look at it as failure doesn't exist. You can't go to the street corner and find some growing out of the earth. Oh, look, I found some failure you want some? You can't go to the store and buy failure, you might buy something labeled failure, but that's not the thing itself. It doesn't exist anywhere. Another way to look at it is there's no such thing as failure, there's only experiences that you're having that you choose to call failure. Another way to look at it is, it felt like failure existed. It felt like mistakes happen when all that happened is no Sir, you didn't intend to play. You played on a piano. Things that you didn't intend to happen, happened. Mostly because you just weren't aware. Think about it. [09:39.1]
If you or someone you know is looking to drop the F-bomb of “Freedom” in their life, whether that's from past trauma, depression, anxiety, addiction, or any other host of emotional and personal struggles, but they just don't know how or wants some help doing it. Head on over to thefreedomspecialist.com/feelbetternow and check out some of the things we've got in store for you or book a call so we can look at your unique situation and get you the help that you're looking for. [10:06.6]
I’m recording this, it's at the end of the year, 2020, and all hell broke loose this year. A massive pandemic. If we had rewinded one year ago in December or October of 2019, how many people knew that a world global pandemic would hit there? I mean, if you're a conspiracy theorist, maybe you think there's a few people that knew whatever. In general, did you plan on it? It wasn't there, right? So, you have quarterly goals and financial plans and all kinds of stuff that shows up that you've planned for that you intend to have happened and everything's on point, you're getting the right markers and everything else. And then, a pandemic hits and depending on your industry, everything falls apart. Was that failure or is that simply look? No, like I just simply didn't see it coming. If I'd have seen it coming, I would have operated differently. [10:57.2]
What you're calling failure is just, Hey, I wasn't able to see all the variables. So, I didn't see the thing coming. If I had seen it coming, I would have done something different. Well, what people call failure is simply really them not wanting what happened, but it only happens because they aren't aware of everything in play. And this happens with all a lot of us all the time. So now what I want you to do is if you're driving, don't do this. Don't close your eyes. But if you're just listening to it on your own exercising, whatever, and this particular episode, I want you to close your eyes, consider for a second while we've talked about failure, any one of those interpretations of it are equally valid, aren't they? You're having just, isn't it true that you're having experiences in your life. That every moment of your life is an experience. And it isn't it true that two people could go through the same experience and one could experience it as a failure and another as a success. And isn't it true that that experience of it is different from the experience itself, from the occurrence itself, that it's an interpretation of it. Isn't that true? [12:02.6]
And if that's true, then failure's made up in your own mind, that if you went through the same thing, totally unconscious, you wouldn't have experienced failure at all. The only thing that would have happened is whatever chemical or mechanical changes it did to your body. Is it possible for you to be a failure because there's no such thing, you made it up. It's impossible to fail as a verb. It's only possible to make up failure and feel experienced that in your mind. But there is nothing that you could possibly do on the planet to fail, because it's not an action that you can take. So I want you to go back in your memory banks, look at all the times that feel to you like they were deep failure and keep your eyes closed and really look at it. And I want you to look with your eyes and your ears and your nose. We're looking for facts, the five senses, right. If you listen to the episode on hacking the three brains, this'll make sense, go back and look at this. [13:05.6]
Did you actually see failure as a thing running around on the planet? Did you actually see it? And if you didn't see it, what did you see? Did you actually see a thing called failure causing all kinds of mayhem, running around, you know, shooting punishments out of the sky, running amok because your parent’s punishments, those are just ways that they're trying to manipulate you into doing what they want. And any parent, if they're honest, will admit this, even if they want the best for you, what their definition of the best is what they think your life should be, what they think is best. They want, what they want for you and all of the behaviors and actions they're taking. Well, I want my kid to make his own choice in life. That two is what they want for you. And so, all the actions they're taking are to manipulate you into doing that. Sorry, everybody's manipulating everybody at some degree or another. When we interact, it's totally fine. It's normal. And they have great intentions. But all of the punishments that they're doing are just to manipulate you into behaving something. [14:09.7]
It's because you didn't, you didn't do what they wanted you to do. So, they threw an adult temper tantrum. That's all that happened. And I've done this with my kids. And if you're honest, you've probably done it with your kids, whether it's an actual temper tantrum or whether it's manipulation or taking away privileges or anything else, you're just trying to get them to do what you want to do. That's not cosmic there isn't some divine. Did you ever see, as you're closing your eyes, looking at this, some divine, cosmic, invisible hand running down and punishing people, or did people punish people. Did failure exist? Did you ever see failure? And if not, what did you see? Did you see a little kid, just trying to figure out why they felt so bad or trying to sort through, you know, why people are calling them names or why his parents are, or punishing them all the time and maybe deciding, Oh man, maybe I'm just a failure. Maybe that makes sense. And if now that I know that I can navigate life better because that'll make sense. [15:07.2]
Or did you just see people like not having things happen the way they wanted to have happen? What did you see, not what did you think we’re going deeply into your mentality or your psychology? And if at that point in time, you and I had been able to sit down on the front porch and have a little conversation and say, you look up at me and you're like, dude, Bob, maybe you look down at me. You can be bigger. It's fine. And you go, dude, Bob, I, is it because I'm a failure? Is that why this stuff is happening? Is it because I failed? And I go, DOE no, not at all. You just did what you did and what happened happened. It's just life, you know, cause and effect. It has nothing to do with who you are, what you are as a being. There's no possible way you can fail. The only thing that's happening is stuff's happening in your life and you're handling it the way, you know how to handle it. Because of that experience, you've learned something new and so if it happens something similar, like that happens again, then you'll probably respond differently, but you handled it or you would still you're, you'd be dead. 100% of your life, you've handled. [16:19.6]
In fact, if you look back over the entire history of your life, everything that has ever happened to you, you've handled because you're here right now, listening to this, you're even handling my voice right now. Everything that's happened to you in your life, you've handled, you have a hundred percent success rate at handling whatever comes up in whatever way, you know, best how to do it. And even death, like as you move into the future, even death is a way of handling life. It's a way of your system going, Hey, look, man, we don't want to handle any more pain than we need to and continue on with this. So, let's release ourselves from this pain and go into death. That too is a way of handling it. So, as you move forward into your life, your chances of success are literally 100%. You have a 0% failure rate, 0%.[17:06.5]
There is nothing that has ever happened to you in your life that you have not handled. There's nothing that will ever happen to you in your life, that you will not handle. You did nothing to be afraid of, you'll handle it to the best of your ability. And some things you'll be able to control, others you won't. And all of them, you can laugh at at a certain point in time later. But none of it has anything to do with who you are as a being, all of it is just stuff happening. That's it. What would it have felt like to have been able to have that conversation as you were growing up? What would it have felt like to have that conversation as big things in your life that felt like failure showed up and we were able to say, Oh wow, that's not a failure at all. That's just something that happened. Oh, wow. Yeah, no, you, you actually just made up the feeling of failure and you know what you did that so that you could motivate yourself to do better because you care enough about yourself to motivate yourself, to continue to do things in a better and better way. [18:04.6]
You just have only ever learned because you saw other people do it, that feeling bad about stuff as a way of motivating yourself to do things. But did you know that you can continue to improve and progress and learn your whole life through joy and not your pain? Did you know that you can laugh your way to mastery without having to wallow in grief and feel like a failure? Did you know that when people call you a failure that all they're really trying to do is motivate you as well, or try to make themselves feel better. And did you know that none of it is true, those are just words they're using to try and make themselves feel better. But the reality is that who you are as a being is so far greater than anything, anyone on this planet could possibly imagine, that there's no possible way that failure could enter into it, unless you decide, you know what I want to experience failure. So, I'm going to make believe that was a failure. That's all that happened. That's all that happened.
What would that have felt like really go into it, really imagine that happening. What would that have felt like? Because that is more true than any story you've ever been told about failure. And all the fears you have about failure, they're not real. They're made up by you. And whether you feel like a failure or not still the same actions need to be taken, you might as well take them in joy. So instead of going around, talking about failure as if it's a real thing, Oh, I failed. No, you didn't. You did what you did. Just say what happened, look at it for what it is and allow whatever comes to that to show up in your life. Because I'll tell you this, the more honest you can be by simply saying what happened without any interpretation, the more joy you'll feel and the more capable you'll be of doing the things you actually care about. [19:53.8]
And that's it for todays “Alive and Free Podcast.” If you enjoyed this show and want some more freedom bombs landing in your ear buds, subscribe right now at wherever you get your podcasts from. And, while you're at it, give us a rating and a review. It'll help us keep delivering great stuff to you. Plus, it's just nice to be nice. [20:11.9]
This is ThePodcastFactory.com
