003 What is failure? with Henri Ghijben

We are conditioned to avoid failure from childhood and be afraid of it. In this episode, I’m taking a deep dive into failure, answering three key questions;

 

What is failure?

How does failure affect our approach to life?

What can you do to change your perspective?

 

When you look up fail, failure and failing in the Oxford English Dictionary, you’ll read three of the most negative definitions I’ve ever seen.

 

However, when you break it down, failure is everywhere.

 

We face failure every day. Not just in the big things like a business going under or losing your family home. Also, the minor things like being late for a meeting, choosing a gridlocked route to work, or burning the toast. Yet we overlook life’s minor failures while catastrophising over the big ones.

 

When I lost my business a few years ago, I read a book that profoundly impacted what I did next. That book was Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed. And it made me think about two things:

 

What if we reframed the negative narrative and stopped fearing failure?

What difference would it make to our lives if we actively looked for the lessons in each perceived failure?

 

Throughout this episode, you’ll hear me talk about not giving up and the difference between giving up and learning to do something differently.

 

And I’ll explore the concept that experience and failure are the same things - the difference is how you think and feel about them. You’ll learn the simple four-step plan I’ve created to help you process and overcome failures.

 

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