[00:00] Guess what? Failure is an option, as we learned from June Cox, and failure was an option for Helen Marles and her practice just like yours. Just like how last week, last month, last year went in your sales career, in your business, in your marriage, in your workouts. That does not determine how this week is going to go.

[00:23] Welcome to another episode of Success for the Athletic Minded Man, real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business and life. This is your host, Jim Harshaw, Jr. And today I’m bringing you a solo episode. We’re talking about failure. I’m gonna start out with this quote by Tom Hopkins.

[00:40] Tom Hopkins is a author, speaker, world renowned sales coach, and he said this, I’m not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed. And the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying. Go back and listen to that again.

[00:59] Right? You’re not judged by how many times you fail. You’re judged by how many times you succeed and how many times you succeed. Your degree of success is directly proportional to your failures, to how many times you fail. You’re not afraid of failure. You are afraid that others will see you fail. Right?

[01:16] And here’s the thing, people don’t remember. Your failure. So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. We’re gonna talk about the role of failure in success. Of course, if you’re a long time listener, you know that the podcast used to be called Success Through Failure Through the end of 2023 and 2024, we changed the brand.

[01:32] But this is an episode to Harken back to some of those days and some of those lessons and a lesson that you need to hear. Right now because failure is holding you back in some way, shape, or form. And listen, it may be conscious, it may be unconscious, but it holds us all back and we have to really put it under a microscope so that we can learn from it and we can grow from it, and we can get better and we can actually identify what are the, the learnings from failure so that we can succeed.

[01:58] Actually, when I interviewed Tim Ferris back in episode 2 46 and 2 47. One of the things he mentioned was, you know, failure does not automatically mean you’re going to succeed. It’s, it’s the learning from failure. Are you learning from it or are you just taking it as a sign that I’m not good at something, I gotta quit, I gotta try something new or try something different?

[02:18] That’s not the case. Research actually proves this out. So there’s two great research studies that were published that I love to reference, and one of them was from the Kellogg School of Business. And the, and I actually had the links to some articles in the, from the, uh, Harvard Business Review about this, but Professor Hun Wang, and I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing the first name right, but put a bunch of data together and looked at three different groups of people in the groups who were this number one, uh, scientists who were applying for grants to the NIH right?

[02:50] National Institutes of Health. Number two, it was entrepreneurs with startup businesses. Number three was actually terrorist organizations, right? So he did the research between the, the groups who failed and continued to fail and never found success, and those who failed, but eventually found success. And one of the biggest determinants between those who failed and continued to fail and those who failed and eventually succeeded was the fact that those who failed.

[03:25] Got up and tried again sooner. It was that interval of time between failures. So what does that tell you? You have failed. Have you learned from it? Have you felt that I’m just not good at that thing, so I’m not gonna try again? Or have you realized that No, I’m actually now more qualified. I’m now better off for that, and now I, I get to try again and I’ll do even better this next time, or at least have a higher degree or chance.

[03:49] Of succeeding. Now, I, this is a lesson that I’ll be honest, I, I wish I would’ve learned a, a long time ago. I wish I would’ve had a coach when I was going through a business failure that I had. So I failed at a company called Riot Sports Marketing. Right. I had sold a prior business, went into a new business, totally new.

[04:04] It was a technology company race of Angel Capital, hired a, a development team, and we built a software. I love this thing I was so excited about, and I still think like the business model would still work, but I just had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea what a wire frame was. I had no idea how to tell a software developer how to create what I wanted them to create.

[04:24] I really didn’t even know what it was gonna look like in my head. And so I was just totally clueless going into this blind. And guess what I found, right? We had revenue, we had customers. After about two years, I ended up shutting this thing down, but just, just didn’t have enough to keep the lights on. I took that as a sign that, oh, Jim, you’re not good at technology.

[04:45] You’re not good at starting a software company. This is just something that you’re not good at. Well, you know, if, if you judge a fish by how well it can climb a tree, then the, the fish is gonna be. Feel like a failure, right? Like I was a fish outta water. I had no idea how to, to do what I was trying to do, but I actually got better at it.

[05:03] And I wish I’d have learned that earlier on. I was outta money, I was outta time, I was burnt out and had to get a job. And I, I got a job after that and I finally reflected on the fact that, wait a second, I’m actually more qualified than ever. I’m more qualified than most people, certainly most people coming out of.

[05:21] College with a computer science degree even, to go out and build a tech company. Because I had business experience and I had experience in building a, a software, we actually built something that we went to market with and we had customers paying us. And now here I am, 15 years later, I’m actually developing a software again.

[05:36] And I’m, I’m looking back at this, going, I’m so much better. Like I’m moving so much faster because of this, because of this failure. And so your failure, I wish I wouldn’t have waited 15 years, but you know, your failure positions you. For success on the next attempt. Right? And the interval of time between attempts is the biggest or one of the biggest determinants of between going from, you know, staying as a failure or going from failure to success.

[06:03] By the way, here’s the other major determinant of turning failure into success. It’s failing early. They studied those who tried earlier in their careers and tried, had failures in their first attempts versus those who succeeded right away. And if you have failure early, it might mean you’re pushing harder, you’re striving, you’re setting the goal or the bar higher, or it might just mean you, you experienced a failure early for some other reason, but that is a determinant of future success.

[06:31] And so just start. That’s the lesson there is just start. And if you fail, get up and try again quickly. The faster you do, the more likely you are going to be able to find success. And the other research that I like to reference is this. There was a study published in the journal called Cognitive Science, and here’s basically what came out of it.

[06:52] They tested two different students, and by the way, the, the concept that they, they tested here and came up with is, is called Productive Failure Productive. Failure, and here’s the concept. They did this with two groups of students. They gave one group of students, they tested them first, and before even teaching them about a concept, they just tested them.

[07:12] And the students tried and struggled and failed miserably. Then they gave instruction. And in the second group they did the opposite. They gave the instruction first, and then they did the test, right? And of course, when those students got tested, they had better success. Which one of those two groups do you think had better retention?

[07:30] Which one of those two groups do you feel like was able to share their learnings and teach others about the concept? It was the first group, the group that failed first. So what does that tell you? Get out there. Try something fail. You’re gonna learn from it, and you’re gonna learn what you need to learn.

[07:50] And you’ll be more likely to succeed. So this is research. I’m gonna have links to all this, right in the action plan. And by the way, if you’re not getting the action plans, I deliver these right to your email inbox every Monday. As soon as the, whenever the episode, every Monday that an episode comes out, you’re gonna get this in your email inbox.

[08:04] So it’s gonna be right there, it’s gonna have all the links, it’s gonna have timestamps for when you can, you know, if you wanna fast forward to certain parts of the episode, it’s all gonna be right in your inbox. Just go to jimharshawjr.com/action. So jimharshawjr.com/action.

[08:22] And so failure is something, I’ll be honest, I’ve struggled with this. I told you, you know, I failed in that business and I thought that I was just no good at that, at building a technology company. And here I am building a software now and I have a service-based company and, and coaching. But we’re, we’re building a technology to support the work that we do.

[08:39] And I also experienced this in wrestling. I mean, I failed in high school at achieving any of my goals, and I thought that meant I was not destined. Certainly not destined for division one college athletics success. But boy was I wrong there and I failed at a lot of other things over the years and.

[08:56] Oftentimes just continue to feel like, well, I’m not good at that. Right? Like Tim Ferriss told us, it’s not the failure in and of itself that will make you successful. It’s the learning from failure. And so for me, I wasn’t doing the productive pause. I didn’t have a coach in my ear who is helping me understand that no, that actually qualifies you.

[09:15] For a higher degree or a higher chance of success moving forward, and the same for you. So one of the things that prompted me recording this episode is one of my clients, Bob, and Bob may be listening to this right now, posted in our online community. We have 80 some guys in our online community. Uh, these are all high performing men who are, a lot of ’em have athletic backgrounds.

[09:36] Bob was a for, is a division one former, division one athlete, wrestler actually as well. And he posted in our weekly posts, we do recent wins, wins for the week. You know, what are the wins you’ve had for the week? I like to get everybody to pause and reflect on the things that went well this week, the wins that they’ve had over the course of the week.

[09:53] Because as humans we have this negativity bias. And Bob, recently, he posted his failures, right? He’s, it’s been a rough week
[10:00] and a lot, you know, a bunch of failures. And he posted his failure, his loss, but he also posted his takeaway and the win from that. What a great mindset. It wasn’t easy for him. Like he didn’t, he didn’t wanna fail at these things, but he failed.

[10:15] Instead of saying, oh, I’m just not good enough. I’m not smart enough, I’m not capable enough. I’m going to, you know, just try something totally different. I’m gonna quit this and, and go a different direction. He said, no, here’s what I learned from it. Here’s what I learned. Here’s how I’m gonna be better for it.

[10:29] And so I wanna share with you just five quick stories. From prior podcast guests, these are world-class performers, people who are some of the best in the world at what they do, and lessons that I’ve taken from their story that you can as well and apply those to your life, how you can make failure your secret weapon.

[10:47] For success and how these folks turn failure into success and how they experience failure, and that was not a predictor of their ability to succeed. So Stephen Pressfield, who is an author, he is written a lot of amazing books. If you have never read The War of Art, not the Art of War, but The War of Art, it’s a fantastic book, short.

[11:07] It is just pure mindset. I mean, he writes a lot of historical fiction and he’s written books like Gates of Fire. He was the author of the book that was turned into the movie. It’s the legend of Bagger Vance. But if you go back and listen to my interview with Steve, actually I’ve interviewed him three times on the podcast.

[11:24] He’s become a friend and he’s just an amazing, amazing author, amazing human. And he talks about a lot of in, in his personal development books like, like The War of Art. And there’s another one called Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit, which is great. It’s just like, you know. You’ve gotta step up and, and turn pro.

[11:40] Turning Pro actually is another one of his books. He is like, he talks about sort of, you know, attacking the thing that you’re doing, like a professional. But one of the things he talks about is resistance. And we all have this resistance inside of us that that holds us back from doing the things that we wanna do.

[11:54] And in our conversations, he’s talked about his struggle to publish his first book. You know, he was 55 years old, he was an author for decades, decades. Writing, trying, striving, failing, and eventually he broke through. You’d be like, oh, it’s, you know, what a great inspirational story. But there were, this was not a foregone conclusion that Steve Pressfield was gonna become a world renowned, one of the best authors in the world who’s written tons of great books and, you know, one’s been turned into a, a major motion picture and others have been pursued for the same things.

[12:30] It’s just that he just kept going, like, do you have the willingness to keep going, to keep trying to keep pushing forward? Because he had all kinds of evidence, just like you do. You can’t achieve that thing. Whatever that thing is, whatever that thing is for your, that you wanna achieve, it’s like it might be that business that you wanna start that next level of your business.

[12:49] The next step in your career. It might be work life balance or integration or harmony, or whatever you wanna call it. It might be just, I can’t find that work life balance. You know? It might be a limiting belief around your weight or your marriage or something like that. It’s all possible. See, Pressfield and so many others are proof.

[13:08] So that was episode 4, 4 2. I’ll have all these links in the action plan. Of course, jimharshawjr.com/action. Another one was episode 1 76 with Jayden Cox. Jayden Cox is a world champion wrestler, and this was my biggest takeaway. I love this. This is like the one thing I remember from that conversation, he said when I finally had my breakthrough is whenever I realized that failure actually was an option when he realized that failure was an option.

[13:37] That allowed him to put down the baggage, the fear of failure, and realize, oh, that that could happen. And guess what? That’s okay. Because that happens to the best in the world. So failure is an option, so therefore let’s just go compete. Let’s just go compete at my highest level. That unlocked his ability when he understood that it’s okay to fail, that failure actually is an option, and it guess what it is for you too.

[14:02] Going for that job promotion or that project or that business, or trying to run a marathon and you’ve never even run a 10 K. Like failure is an option. Go for it. Try it anyway, move forward. That was episode 1 76 with Jayden Cox. Here’s another one, episode 1 43, Helen Marlis. Helen Marlis was the first ever Olympic gold medalist female in wrestling for the United States, and she’s gone on to have over the past several years, just an amazing career, uh, incredibly inspiring person.

[14:30] But she talked about, in the episode, she talked about this terrible month of practice that she had leading up to the Olympic Games. Terrible month of practice. Leading up to the Olympics, struggling maintaining her weight so she could make weight. She was just off track. She felt totally off track. A month later, she wins the Olympic gold medal by beating the most decorated wrestler in history.

[14:55] Ma, male or female. She beat Sari Yoshida, if I think I got her name right, from Japan. Who’s the most decorated, uh, wrestler in history when all these world medals, all these Olympic gold medals. Helen has to wrestle her in the finals after this whole months of of training leading up to the, they were full of self-doubt and setbacks and struggles, and I’m not good enough.

[15:18] Should I even be on the Olympic team? Go back and listen to the episode 1 43. We’ll have the link in the action plan, but that led her to be becoming an Olympic gold medalist. I remember when I was wrestling in college, I had a really bad week of practice once and. That weekend, I was like, oh boy, this is, this is gonna be rough.

[15:35] You know, I just had a bad, terrible week of practice. Struggled making weight, was, you know, everybody was taking me down. I was just, just not performing well. And I went out and I won my first championship in my in college. It was the first time I’d won a tournament championship. It was my sophomore year.

[15:49] I’d won a tournament championship that weekend. I was like, wow. Like, how about that? You know, I had a bad week and I still go out and win a championship. First one ever in my college career. The whole next week, I’m riding high. I have a great week of practice. And the following weekend I tank. You know, it’s like, so your practice does not determine how you’re gonna perform.

[16:10] You, of course, you wanna have a great practice. That’s what we’re aiming for, right? You wanna practice hard, give it your best. And I did that. I did that in both of those weeks. I gave it my best. Really. One week went really well and one didn’t. But that’s all you can really ask, because guess what? Failure is an option.

[16:25] As we learned from Jaden Cox, and failure was an option for Helen Merus. And her, her practice just like yours. Just like how, how last week, last month, last year went in your sales career, in your business, in your marriage, in your workouts. That does not determine how this week is going to go, right? That’s Helen Marus.

[16:47] I told you I was gonna share five stories. I gave you three so far. Steve Pressfield, Jayden Cox, Helen Marus. The next one is John Gordon. And I’m hearkening back to some of these old, old episodes. John Gordon was way back in episode one 17. You probably have heard of John Gordon read some of his books.

[17:02] Maybe he’s written Energy Bus and all these really great books, like 30 books or something like that. He talked about when he first started his writing career, he was a nobody and he, he did a book launch for one of his boy. It was his first book or second book. He did this book launch and the only people who showed up were people who thought he was Jeff Gordon.

[17:24] The NASCAR driver. He was, it was in some southern destination where NASCAR was popular. And he said the only people, they, they showed up and they thought it was gonna be Jeff Gordon, and they were disappointed and they went home. You know, it’s like, like how would you feel about that? Oh, I, I guess, I guess I’m just not good at this writing thing.

[17:42] Well, he’s gone on to become this incredibly popular and, you know, worldwide known, world renowned speaker and author, John Gordon, episode one 17. Go check that one out. And here’s the last one I’m gonna give you. And this one also is way back in the archives. Eric wme. Eric wme is mountaineer. He summited Mount Everest.

[18:01] And then after summiting Mount Everest, he thought, Hmm, what can be my next great challenge? And he decided he wanted to whitewater kayak over 200 miles of the Grand Canyon. Huge whitewater, massive whitewater. And he did it. He succeeded in doing both of those. Either one of those would be a, the pinnacle of, of any adventurer’s career.

[18:18] He did both. Oh, by the way, Eric Winema is blind. What role do you think failure had in his success? Do you think when he started mountaineering in rock climbing that it was easy for him? No. It would be a lot easier for you to accomplish what he accomplished. It would be easier for you. Think about that.

[18:38] It would be easier for you to summit Mount Everest than him. It would be easier for you to learn how to whitewater, kayak, world class, huge, massive whitewater in a kayak. It would be easier for you than it was for him. Do you think failure played a role? As a matter of fact, one of the things that he had to figure out being blind was, how do I know what line to run in these rapids?

[19:03] And by the way, I’m, I’ve done a lot, a lot of whitewater kayaking, and I’ve kayak some. World class, big, big white water, you’ve gotta hit your line. You’ve gotta know exactly where to go, and you’ve gotta hit your line. And if you don’t, you could die. You know? And I’ve, I’ve made mistakes and, uh, obviously I’m here to tell about it, but I’ve been thrashed about and thrown upside down inside of massive, terrifying white water.

[19:27] And it’s scary. And he had to face that blind. And so how did you know what line to hit? If you can’t freaking see the line? They had to figure that out, and they had people going in front of him and they had whistles and noises and sounds and, and ways to communicate to him to go right to go left. Can you imagine?

[19:46] I can’t even imagine running one rapid with my eyes closed, let alone running the whole Grand Canyon blind, and he did it. Episode 96. Go back and check that one out. Failure is a necessary step on your
[20:00] path to success. Are you harnessing it? Are you leveraging it? Are you, are you believing it? I’ll be honest.

[20:06] It’s hard to believe it by yourself. You’ve gotta get somebody who’s outside of your own head who can help you see these things, who can help you understand these things. Whether it’s a counselor, a therapist, a mentor, a coach, a friend, somebody who can help you see this. Somebody who’s invested in you, invested in your success that can help you see this.

[20:28] And this isn’t just for kids because listen, all, all these lessons, most of you are adults listening to this. Oh, it, it’s easy for us to tell this to our kids. It’s easy for us to tell this to, you know, if you’re coaching a kid’s soccer team or wrestling team or something, it’s easy to tell them that and say these things.

[20:45] But can you actually look in the mirror and say it for yourself? Can you actually look in the mirror and say, okay, that last job application that I, I attempted to get that job and I failed. That’s made me better. I’m now more qualified, not less. I should have more confidence moving forward because of that.

[21:03] Not despite that, but because of it. Like do you actually believe that? Can you say that, look in the mirror and say that, not saying that to kids, not say, saying that to those who report to you at work, but can you say that to yourself about your failures, about your struggles, about your setbacks? If not, get a coach.

[21:21] Get somebody outside of you. It’ll make you better. I want you to take action, figure out what’s one action item. What’s one thing that you can do? One action item from this episode. It might be journaling. It might be figuring out who do I need to bring into my life in order to get me to where I want to go?

[21:35] Right? Um, you’re operating at your default and your default might be pretty high, like my clients, right? They’re high performing guys operating at a high level. They just want to go from good to great. What do you need to do to go from good to great? How can failure play a role? How has it played a role in your success, in your ability to go even further?

[21:54] Take action. Good luck.

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