When Failure Meets Success

On my way home from the bus stop this morning I started to think about what have I failed at in my life and was I able to overcome the failure to improve on who I am? While my life is far from perfect and in 38 years I have had multiple failures due to the fact that I am always trying to push the envelope there are three failures that come to mind that stand out from the rest.

I believe that sometimes the path of growth also comes from admitting your weaknesses as someone out there may be struggling and think they are on an island by themselves. We can all grow together and we can all learn from each other as long as we are willing to open up.

1. Family Connectivity - Growing up I never knew when and if I would ever have children but I always maintained a commitment to myself that when I did become a family man that it would be my first and foremost commitment. I have been married to an amazing woman for 12 years, my oldest will be an incredible 9 years old next week and life seems perfect right. Well yes when you look at my immediate family I consistently do everything I can to maximize our time. The one thing I have neglected though is my extended family. My sisters, parents and nieces/nephews have been shut out to a certain extent due to my immediate focus and lack of present time consciousness. The fix for this is simple...I need to open my life up more to family and close immediate friends as they are the ones that will always be there for me. If I shut them out now then it gives a slight jagged edge but the benefit is that no matter how sharp that edge the love and support always smooths out the process. So end game is love those around you both inside and outside your circle.

2. Closed Learning Capacity - For most of my life until I will say 2-3 years ago I really closed myself off to learning. I reached a state that I felt comfortable that I knew as much as I could and what would be the joy or benefit of investing more time into learning. Well the answer is simple...the advantage is HUGE!!! When I say learning I am not just talking about taking a class. I am talking about everything that is all encompassing surrounding being a better person today than yesterday. I have learned to listen and I mean truly listen to my wife, my children, my patients and myself. Truly listening and not thinking of a response before the person has finished will teach you more that you can imagine. I also started to listen to myself and my body. I have always pushed the limits of training but as I aged I noticed if I really tuned into who I was and how I recover that my performance increased on a quarter of the time commitment. One of the largest training tools is my commitment to reading 1-2  books a week. My Amazon wish list at times would confuse just about anyone as to what I enjoy to read. I have such a wide spectrum of items from Tony Robbins to Napoleon Hill to Tim Ferriss to How to be a better/husband dad to plant based diet books all the way to how to make your daughter think you cool!!! Learning is a tool that no one should ever close the door on. There is such great information discovered daily yet also ancient wisdom that has been around for 100's of years that can reinforce your drive to be better version of yourself.

3. Faulty circle - My reference point here is do you surround yourself with people of success? People that drive for perfection? Individuals that just by being close to them makes you a better person? Or do you surround yourself with people that lack integrity? Morals? Ethically challenged? Talk about people in a negative fashion behind their back? Always respond negatively? or always respond to a challenge you have as saying there is no way you could accomplish that? The great Napoleon Hill used the term Master Mind Group to describe how the most successful people in the history of success have a knack for surrounding themselves with like minded successful individuals. People who offer constructive advice instead of negative criticism. Individuals who help change your perspective if needed by offering better ways at doing a task. I never really gave any thought to this until I really sat down and looked at over time the people I associated myself with on a regular basis. I realized that I indeed surrounded myself with successful people and the mere thought of seeing them boosted a drive within me to be better. I however had those friends that never had anything nice to say, always complained about life (they also never did anything to improve it), set no goals and had no drive to improve their life 1% each day. As hard as it was I had to either continue to let their negative mind infiltrate my daily actions or break away. Well success is garnered from what we learn, associated and our mindset. So while I still see those friends from time to time they are not part of my Master Mind Group or circle of trust.

I hope this helps someone along the way and remember that its you that is in charge of your life. While most people think that external items (money, car, house, nice triathlon bike) is what is needed for a happy life they are wrong as its the internal items (confidence, faith, health, love, positive auto-suggestions) that drive who you really are.

Make It Count!!!!

Fixed Mindset

I often wonder what the best parenting methods are or what it is that we are suppose to focus on each day as a parent to ensure that our children are growing up to the best of their ability. I have seen the TV specials, read one or two books, developed an open ear to other parental advise and even searched the web from time to time over the years. Everything came back mixed and really made no sense to the way I was raised or my beliefs. My wife and I have come to one common agreement in raising our children and that is that we will always show them love, respect, always engage them, always be there for them, always discuss everything as we would rather them hear it from us than somebody else and always build them up with the confidence that they can accomplish anything they put their mind to.

This past week during one of our many snow days this year I was in the other room and I overheard a conversation between my oldest two that made me so extremely proud. My 6 year old was talking about how she couldn't accomplish a task she had coming up as it seemed to hard. Instantly my 8 year old jumped in and said "Do you know what your problem is? You have a fixed mindset. You have already given up on yourself. The event hasn't even happened yet and you are already telling yourself that you will fail. Your mindset is fixed on failure so you will probably fail. I suggest that you believe in yourself and open up your mindset to success before you even try." My 6 year old responded immediately with "that actually makes a lot of sense" and that was that as they walked out of the room and carried on with being kids playing in snow. Proof that if you let yourself you can change your mindset immediately.

What put a smile on my face is that they completely understand that how you attack a situation is all up to you. Your mindset and ability to consciously tell yourself the outcome almost always is the outcome. I have been in to many races, situations in life, etc...where the thought of failure started to creep in and what happens? You start to have doubts, you slow down, your posture sucks, your cortisol levels increase, you loose focus, your a bear to be around and confidence in the simple tasks goes away. Where when you have faith, belief, vision or anything related to success or a positive mindset its typically a win/win.

Fixed mindsets are difficult in the sense that its hard to figure a way out of a situation when your in the thick of it. Your vision may be that life just isn't fair and that everything and everyone is out to get you.

I know first hand that life will always throw you a curve ball and its your mindset that will be the ability to see through the thick trees towards the next path in life. I am not saying that I nor anyone else is perfect at this because us as humans are not perfect optimistic creatures. I believe its a percentage based approach to how individuals deal with success, failure or a stage of being in plateau. Some individuals 99% of the time never skip a stride and move on to the next step, some individuals 99% of the time stress or focus on the negative  and then you have everyone in between. We all need to take in, evaluate the world but its those of success and the ones you want to model after that move on and learn from the stress.

Over the past week I have had about 25 things on my plate that I have been trying to digest and apply to next step focus. Well in typical true fashion I was not giving the larger pieces on that plate the attention they needed so the plate started to overflow...which is fancy terms for I started to gain anxiety. No problem though as my answer to most things is a LONG solo run. The long run has always been my go to creative space in life. Its just me and the ability to zone in so preciously on each task I need to take that the runs are usually almost not long enough for everything I can accomplish. When I returned from my run my fixed mindset was gone and I knew what steps to take and within 20 minutes life was a beautiful thing again.

So end game conclusion from this post is your going to have to work towards avoiding a negative fixed mindset in life. I know its not an easy thing to just wake up each day, throw a smile on your face and everything will go smoothly. That is rarely the case as the adventure of life will always constantly push you to learn more about who you are. Its your mindset that will push through the tough times and accomplish anything you put your mind to.

As always I challenge you to wake up each day and always focus on the three key words I love....Make It Count!!!

Also my 8 year old is available for motivational speeches if needed...ha ha!!!