Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome back to another episode of Transformative Change. Today's topic is going to be the topic of failure. This is a tough topic, especially if you're having a hard time actually dealing with failures. I'm going to be a bit personal in the beginning here and hopefully throughout this episode, reflecting over failures in my career and even life. My earliest memory of a failure is I think I was in first grade. I remember there was a vote in the class about the student council representatives. I did not win and I had a very hard time accepting that. I still remember it to this day. I was a kid, of course, but I actually think that the outcome of not becoming a chosen representative made me cry. It made me cry as a very young boy and it was extremely emotional.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Maybe as an adult, we don't handle failure the same way, at least not publicly, but failure has a tendency of evoking something inside of you A sense of not meeting expectation, a sense of losing something, potentially A strong internal feeling that there is something that is outside of your control. And what can we learn from this? Welcome to Transformative Change, the podcast, where we try to be a cross-cutting podcast, getting insights from different areas to be able to provide tools for you to handle transformative changes in this world so we can make sure we create long lasting positive impact on the world and the society that we live in. So that was the first experience I had with failures, and since then I've had so many more. I think we have them all of us, both small and large failures, and I think it's how we actually deal with these type of failures. I think it's also being afraid of failures that keeps us from growing, because growth, of course. I remember I had this manager when I was working in Oslo and I felt like for so long I've been riding success after success and she told me something that actually put me off quite a bit, which was Arrol, remember, it won't always go up. Sometimes it will go down, and I prided myself with for many years that things don't go down.

Speaker 1: 3:09

But this might also have been a part of me that's been afraid from failure. So I've left out a lot of different opportunities. For instance, I've never applied for a job yeah, I know it might sound strange, and of course I've gone to interviews, but what I've driven is opportunity driven rather than seeking. I've never applied for one of the large colleges in the world, or I've never really put effort into the topics where I need to put myself in a vulnerable state Because, end of the day, that is what we're doing. I've taken another route, which is more of the selection route, which is more of if people see me, if they understand what I can do, they will reach out to me and that will create opportunities. I think, personally, I've always been a bit afraid of applying myself into a situation which requires me to show vulnerability and the possibility of being rejected, because in a sense, that's part of also the failures Somebody's rejecting us, somebody's rejecting our applications or our efforts to proceed something. And I think the key success factor here and what I'm trying to learn as well in the topic of failing is it's okay to fail, it's okay not to reach the goal.

Speaker 1: 4:38

One of my favorite expressions is more bats per inning, which is a baseball term from the US. I don't understand baseball, but I understand analogies which is basically, the more you try to hit the ball, it doesn't matter, as long as you hit one home run or another home run. If you apply yourself more often, the likelihood of success becomes more great, and it's having. If you have the skills and you apply yourself constantly. You might get rejected because you might not get the good fit for that specific opportunity that you're trying to reach, but there will be one and you only need one as the key thing here. Sometimes you only need to hit the ball once in order to succeed. It's a very good topic because it's constantly trying, trying, trying and it's a numbers game. In some areas, for instance, sales, it doesn't matter how many know you get, as long as you get enough to fill your quota. Get on the phone and start trying. It doesn't matter how many companies you've tried to build, as long as you manage to build one successfully or then potentially another one. So it's really about applying yourself, not being afraid of the potential part of failing in all of this.

Speaker 1: 6:00

So what can we do in order to be more open to failing more frequently? When I analyze the situation from my perspective, it becomes you need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. When I was a boy and I realized that I didn't get picked for the student council, that invoked a very sad feeling inside of me. Just because we're growing up doesn't mean we are equipped to be able to handle those emotions. So we develop strategies in order not to be able to feel those emotions. One of those strategies might potentially be to limit the amount of exposures to situations that can evoke this type of feeling, thus being risk averse in a sense. Other ones might be to disconnect yourself from the feelings and when it comes to success in general, it might be a good thing to disconnect yourself on your own with the feeling of failure. So if you don't care that you fail, well, you should be applying the success, but it's okay to fail. If you have that mindset, you will be more likely to actually get more out of the failure.

Speaker 1: 7:33

So the first part of all of this really boils down to acceptance and reflection. So you need to acknowledge the failure without judgment. So something has happened. I was applying for this job. I didn't get it, but you need to reflect over it. Why didn't I acknowledge that this happened? And then, why did this happen? I think one of the things that they teach quite often is you should always ask for feedback, which is unrealistic because recruiters and organizations get many applications, so it's hard to give that feedback constantly, and I know that firsthand experience. But reflecting, reflecting over why did this thing particularly happen and what can I do in order to strengthen that, and every interaction and every failure is an opportunity to learn.

Speaker 1: 8:35

I usually use AI and AI development as a good suggestion of an iterative approach, so people can understand. It's sort of an optimization game, because when you have a statistical model and you're trying it on test data, it will give you a certain result. When you're putting this thing into productions for instance, you're giving offers to customers you will get feedback and you will be able to fine tune the model with more input data. So you fine tune it and the answers become more and more relevant over time. The same thing you can think of when it comes to failing. When you fail, you acknowledge that this happened, but I have more opportunities to try. Then you can receive those data points and try to adjust accordingly. So that's really why did this happen and how can I improve this? So understanding the root causes in all of these topics. So failing is good, but failing fast is better and learning from failure is the best Learning from the past experiences without building in too many biases from the past.

Speaker 1: 10:02

One of the topics that we brought up in this podcast multiple times is the learning and growth mindset. When you have a fixed mindset, you kind of see the world as oh, I didn't get this because that's how it's supposed to be, and you leave it at that. But when you have a growth mindset, instead you start seeing failures as opportunities to learn and grow. So a failure is a learning opportunity. So if you adopt this mindset, you actually want to fail because that gives you more data, more insight. If you're just going and being successful all the time, then it's very hard to get those feedback opportunities as well and course direct and be an expert in a field or get a certain position, etc. So it's about the learning and growth mindset analyze the situation to get these real insights and these lessons that you learn can be applied in the future. There will be a proxy for the next interactions that you need to do in this type of situation. So if you then have this growth mindset, it's also about the emotional management.

Speaker 1: 11:24

We are all a bit avoidant and now I'm speaking in general terms because I don't know many people that actually like feeling these type of things but it's quite natural to feel disappointed or upset after a failure. So allow yourself to experience these emotions, but you need to work on managing them constructively. So, if you are able to understand. I'm feeling upset, I'm feeling sad, just as I did as a little boy when I came to not being picked. And we've probably all been in a situation in sports when they don't be picking us for teams, or when you're playing a game and you're losing. This can all be considered as failures. Big or small matter doesn't matter, etc. If you understand that these emotions are natural and you can disconnect yourself a little bit from feeling to the actions you will take afterwards. Like you can see it, you can acknowledge with it and then you can let it go, getting support from people around you. If you can manage your emotions, you are much more likely to continuing trying.

Speaker 1: 12:39

I remember when I was, for instance, taking my driving license once upon a time. I failed a couple of times because I wasn't prepared enough, and I also remember coming home and feeling like I'm never going to reach this goal. I'm never going to get it. But then I finally got it because I didn't give up. I learned I took the feedback from the person that was doing the exams, because they give quite good feedback. I talked to a driving instruction, we worked on the topics that I weren't that good at and then, finally, I reached my target stage, which was, of course, to get a driving license. But this applied to more other situations as well, both professionally and privately.

Speaker 1: 13:25

If you understand that, it's natural to feel disappointed or upset, but it's how you act in the next steps that becomes important. And then it's also about this part emotional management, but building some sort of resilience. So the more challenges you actually face and persevering through them, then having developed this resilience, understanding your emotion, will help you to bounce back from failures and maintaining a positive outlook, because if you have a positive outlook, the likelihood that you're going to continue is much higher. If somebody says, oh, you're going to go down, you start saying, oh, it will eventually be bad, it will be bad, it will be bad. These are quite negative mindsets on the outlooks of the opportunities that you have in front of you. But if you instead change that and say, oh, it might go down, but it will also go up, it will go up at some point. Have a positive outlook, then you will steer yourself in the direction of this and the more you're able to push through, because in some things, the only path is true. If you give up, then you're not on that path anymore.

Speaker 1: 14:38

But if you want to succeed, if you have your target locked and you know where you're going, be resilient, because you need to be resilient and persistent in order to reach these goals. So, end of the day, it's about building the resilience and tough through and bounce back from these failures and maintain a positive outlook. But what really separates those that are successful in dealing with failure from those that are not is the ability to plan and take action. So, after understanding what went wrong and you are resilient enough to continue and you have your emotions at bay and you feel like I really want to do this, then the question is how are you going to do this? So, after you understand what went wrong, make sure you create an actionable plan to address the topics that were in the way for you to succeed. Either you need to course direct. So what does this feel like? Do you really need to adjust the goals, or is it the approach of reaching the goals? Are the goals unreachable because of some limitations around you, or do you just need to tackle the problem differently and then make sure to take these actionable steps towards these goals Because, end of the day, if you reach those goals, then you are no longer failing at reaching them, and I think what we are all quite bad at is finding some sort of mentor in this situation.

Speaker 1: 16:24

We think that we are all wrong, and I really appreciate when people tell me that do you need to do this by yourself? And it's so true. Seek support from others. Ask them hey, I'm going to do this. Can you support me with this? Don't think that you're all alone. Don't be in the mud by yourself. Get people to help you, and you'd be surprised how many people actually are willing to support you in reaching those goals. So seeking support and feedback is crucial.

Speaker 1: 17:04

Then, as the next step, it's really about focusing on your strengths and improvements. So concentrate on your strengths and how you can improve the area. So weakness goes a little bit back to this. Take action, part of things.

Speaker 1: 17:18

It's very crucial for you to understand what is it that made you not reach this, and I think what you want to do is focus on what you're good at, because, end of the day, if you're pulling through, it's about having the confidence and the competence in order to be able to reach your goals, and we might come to a point, when we talk about these things that there is okay and you might not reach the goals, and we have to make peace with that. We're not going to reach all goals in life, so we need to be quite realistic in understanding and accepting the fact that if we have goals and we're not reaching them, that's okay. That's not the end of the world. I think what's important is to be flexible and open to change, end of the day, because sometimes failure indicates the need for a change in direction. So you should also be quite open when it comes to exploring new path or methods that might yield better results, or working on course, directing when is it that I want to go and why.

Speaker 1: 18:35

Going back to exploring why you want to reach this are there other ways of reaching the same satisfaction in goal fulfillment? So dealing with failure is, end of the day, a personal journey how you're reacting to it, how you're feeling about it and how you're executing towards it, and what works best can vary from person to person. The key is really to maintain a positive attitude and learn from experience and keep moving forward, because if you're standing still, you're not growing, and when you're not growing, you're going to start deteriorating. That was the end of this podcast. I hope you enjoyed this talking about failures towards the end of the year. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure to subscribe and listen in next week. Thank you,