Chapter 6

The Failure Myth

It was dark when Josh left the house the next morning. Fall is here, he thought. The time is flying by. That thought immediately reminded him of the whiteboard at the office and the few remaining days before the end of the month, and he felt a knot form in his stomach. It tightened further as he remembered that he had yet to tell Kiera the whole story about what was going on at the office.

To meet Amy, Josh took a street he seldom traveled on. As he slowed near the end of the block, he was shaken from his anxious contemplation by the sight of a woman in the dawn light carrying a sleeping child from an idling car up the walk to a home.

The woman was Wendy. Josh slowed, and saw Wendy kiss the sleeping child, and then pass her to an older woman at the house door. As she turned to leave, Josh could see the sadness in Wendy's face. She looked like she was on the brink of tears.

Josh met Amy at a park, and Josh commented on her apparent love of the outdoors.

“I just find I think better,” she said. “Work doesn't have to mean a desk—at least, not for me.”

Listening to the morning birds and sipping a fresh, hot coffee, Josh could find no fault with her argument.

“So you understood Anna's point yesterday?” Amy asked, after a few quiet minutes.

“Definitely. She's right—I really do know what to do. I just need to do more of it. When I really looked at my behavior over the past year, I realized that I wasn't doing much of what I knew. I was busy, but not productive, I guess.”

Amy smiled. “Don't feel bad. It happens to all of us.”

“But why?” Josh asked.

“The Knowledge Myth and the Future Myth share something in common,” Amy replied. “They both make us feel like we're doing something. When we're stuck, or afraid, or uncertain, setting goals, and getting more information makes us feel like we're not standing still. The problem is that we often are.”

“I just wish I hadn't spent so much on all those seminars, telling me what I already knew.”

“Josh, that's always money well spent. You can never learn too much. And we don't retain everything—far from it. Continuing to learn is critical to reinforcing what's important. The knowledge myth doesn't tell us to stop learning. It tells us to start doing. It's about not being fooled into thinking we always need to know more to find success.”

“Well. That's me, that's for sure. I've spent a lot of time not doing lately. A lot of time looking for the next magic bullet.”

“That's part of the reason I don't stay in the office all the time,” Amy commented. “I like to separate my doing time from the rest of my life. I've never been one to do 24–7, but if I carve out clear times for productive forward motion, and clear times for the other parts of my life, then I can get a lot done.”

“I hope I can too,” said Josh. “But I'm worried that I won't be able to. That I'll sit at my desk and still feel like I don't know what to do.”

“You're not alone there either, Josh,” said Amy. “That usually means there's something else standing in your way—something else you believe that you shouldn't.”

“Another myth?” Josh smiled.

“Bingo.”

“Then lead on.”

Amy parked in front of a long, low warehouse near the city waterfront. The sign out front read: Methiant Industries.

Amy led Josh to a side door, and they walked directly into an enormous open space. It was spotlessly clean and humming with activity. While from the outside it looked like an industrial building, inside Josh could see the floor was covered in desks. The entire space was one large, open concept office.

The place was a hive of activity, and there was a level of ambient noise of a hundred people at work, on phones, typing, talking, and otherwise carrying out business. Despite that, however, a voice boomed across the huge room, cutting through the background hubbub.

“Amy!”

Amy grinned. “No need for a receptionist here.”

Josh looked in the direction of the voice, and saw a tall man waving and heading in their direction.

As he grew closer, Josh could see he was wrong. The man wasn't tall. He was enormous. He must have been close to seven feet, looking bigger with each stride.

“Nathan,” Amy said with a smile. “I've got someone here I'd like you to meet. This is Josh.”

Nathan stuck out an enormous hand that swallowed Josh's briefly, and then coughed it back up undigested.

“Great to meet you Josh. Welcome to Methiant.”

“Thanks,” Josh replied. “This is quite a spot.” Josh looked at Nathan again. He looked so familiar, somehow.

“It's a bit of a nuthouse, but we like it.”

“What is it you do here?”

“Well. In the big scheme of things, I like to think we turn failure into success. But,” Nathan grinned, “most people call us a salvage company.”

Nathan gave Josh a short tour of the large room, explaining to him how they monitored weather systems, marine radio channels, and stayed on call 24–7 to respond to distress calls and insurance emergencies.

“We've got teams of experienced salvage crews around the world ready to fly to wherever they're needed. If we're on our game, we can often save a ship and it's cargo. And when we can't, we can usually save the people.”

Josh was fascinated. “How on earth did you end up running a business like this?”

Nathan laughed. “That's a long story, but let's just say it wasn't the typical route—if there is such a thing.”

Again, Josh was struck by the idea that he knew this man. He just couldn't place him.

“You look familiar, Nathan.”

Nathan smiled cryptically. “Maybe it's just my size. I was six feet tall before I even got to high school, Josh. It's hard to understand until you've been there, but as you can tell, I stand out in a crowd.”

“No kidding. But at least you can see over everyone else.”

“Well that's one upside, but there are some downsides. When you're this big, people notice you. And they also notice what you do, or don't do. As I discovered early on, when you stand out this much, people expect more. More on sports teams, more on the playground, more everywhere. And when you don't meet those expectations, people let you know.”

“That must have been difficult.”

Nathan smiled. “That's an understatement. But I don't want to make this a glass half full story of troubled youth. The short story is that I grew up under scrutiny. I was streamlined into basketball—no surprise—and I did all right. I got extra attention, extra coaching.”

Suddenly, Nathan started to look a lot more familiar to Josh.

“I was groomed for college ball. I was coached, scouted, and eventually got a huge scholarship—and more scrutiny. Eventually I was a number one draft pick.”

It clicked for Josh.

“Nathan Kensington. You're Nathan Kensington.”

The big man smiled. “Guilty as charged.”

“You were the number one pick. You got a huge contract, and then…” Josh trailed off.

“…and then never played a game?” Nathan ventured.

Josh flushed. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay. I'm more than over it. I did what every sports fan calls choking. I couldn't perform in pro ball. Couldn't shoot. The day I signed that contract was the day I stopped being able to play ball.”

“But why?” Josh asked. “You were amazing. You had it made.”

“I was pretty good,” Nathan laughed. “I knew how to play ball, that's for sure. But I couldn't do what I knew when crunch time came. From the moment I signed that deal, I couldn't take a shot. I'd stand there on the court. I could have all the time in the world, but I couldn't shoot the damn ball.” He shook his head in recollection. “It still amazes me when I look back on it.”

“I don't understand,” Josh said.

“Neither did I at the time,” said Nathan. “Neither did my family, my friends, my teammates, my coaches, or the fans. They gave me more training, more coaching. Then they gave me counseling. When nothing worked, they gave me a hard time. Then they let me go. It was over.”

“But…why? Why didn't you just…play, like you always had?”

“Because then it was for fun. Once I signed, it…seemed different. The stakes were enormously high. In a word, I was afraid to fail.”

“So, what happened?”

“I drifted for a while. Tried to stay in the industry, but it was too painful. I wandered, found booze and drugs. I spent time in and out of rehab. And then I had an epiphany of sorts. I was wandering the streets, trying to not stay home and not drink, and I heard the sounds of kids shouting. I followed the sound, and found a group of kids playing street ball. I stopped to watch, and it…it just hit me. These kids—maybe in late high school—were doing things on that asphalt court that only kids do. Ridiculous shots. Crazy moves. Stunts that no NBA player would ever pull. They were just having a good time and doing a little showing off.

“What was magical, though, was that I realized, they weren't afraid of missing. They were doing, without fear of failure.”

“They weren't playing for stakes. They were playing for fun; and what that allowed them to do was…well, to do what I no longer could. To play without fear of making a mistake. They tried things over and over and over. And eventually they'd get it right. But I realized that not only were they not afraid of failing, but that the process of failing was what was making them better. I know it sounds cheesy, but that game of street ball changed my life. By that point, my NBA career was beyond redemption, but my life wasn't.

“The next day I started Methiant Industries. I had no idea what Methiant would do, but I knew it would do something, and it would find it's way there by failing forward. By doing. That's when I discovered what Amy would call The Failure Myth.”

“The Failure Myth?”

“The Failure Myth is so common in our culture that it's like an epidemic.”

“And you're saying that failure is…a myth?”

“Oh no,” Nathan laughed. “Far from it. I definitely failed at pro ball, and many other things. I can tell you with painful certainty that it's real. What the Failure Myth teaches us is not that failure doesn't exist, but that it isn't necessarily bad. That it's not the opposite of success. That, in fact, it's the path to reach it.”

At that point, a young man approached and politely interrupted. “Could I get you to look at something, Nathan?” he asked, and Amy and Josh were left alone.

When Nathan returned, Josh had been thinking. “I can see how failure might put you on the path to something better,” he said. “And I also understand that the pressure of millions of dollars and millions of fans would be enough to make someone choke, but I'm really not in the same position. I've got a few bills to pay, and very few fans to please.”

“Don't fool yourself, Josh,” he warned. “The only fan I was having trouble pleasing was me. You're under just as much pressure to live up to your expectations as I was to live up to mine. When I talk about stakes, I don't mean the money or the fame. I'm talking about our own internal voice that calls us a loser when we make a mistake. There's only one fan for each of us, Josh. And that inner fan does a lot of heckling. A lot of criticizing. And that makes it harder and harder to try. To take a risk.”

“But I'm not taking any risks, really,” Josh said.

“That's how we fool ourselves into falling for the Failure Myth, Josh. The fear of failing in front of your best friend, or your parents, or your spouse, is just as powerful—if not more so—than the fear of failing in front of a million faceless fans.”

Josh thought for a moment. “I'll admit that I don't want to screw up, and lose my home, or be a financial failure. But wouldn't that fear actually motivate me more?”

“That's a great question. Fear of failure has its purpose. But it's not to reach success. The fear of failure will only take you so far. It'll take you to survival. It'll make sure you keep your house, pay your bills. But only that. It won't take you to the abundant success that you're looking for. Before you can beat the Failure Myth, you need to first acknowledge that the fear of failure is holding you back.”

Josh thought about his own work. “You think fear of failure is stopping me from doing my work?”

Nathan thought for a moment. “You're in sales, right?”

“Yep. Real estate, to be specific.”

“So…how many sales calls did you make last week?”

“Oh…gee…lots. That's a big part of my day, I'd say.”

“So…how many?”

Josh thought. Then he felt his cheeks begin to flush. A big part of your day, huh? the voice said.

“I…I think perhaps I haven't been making as many as I could have been.”

“Don't feel bad, Josh. Your not making sales calls is the same thing as me not taking a shot in the middle of a game.”

“How so?”

“We're both afraid to miss.”

Josh looked at Nathan and felt the truth sink in. It was true. There were all kinds of calls he could make, but he was afraid of being rejected. And not just calls. All kinds of things he could do in his business that he didn't because he was afraid he'd fail or was worried that he couldn't do them perfectly.

It's true, Josh realized. The failure myth really was stopping him from doing what he knew.

Nathan interrupted Josh's introspection. “It looks like the Failure Myth just hit home.”

“Yeah,” Josh said. “Slam dunk.”

Nathan smiled. “It's like that, the Failure Myth. The idea that failure is bad, so pervasive, that when you see the other side, it can be a bit of a shock.”

Josh was silent for a moment.

“I can tell you're not quite convinced,” Nathan ventured.

“No. It makes sense, perfect sense. I really have been afraid to fail. But,” he looked at Nathan. “I'm already wondering if knowing that is enough. What happens if I leave here and I'm still afraid of failing? Then, in a way, I'd be falling for the Knowledge Myth too, by assuming that simply knowing more was the solution.”

Amy smiled and turned to Nathan. “See? I told you he was a sharp one.”

Josh blushed.

“That's a smart question,” Nathan said. “The best way I know of both to get comfortable with failure and also to see it as a means of progress is to actually fail more. You need to have the experience, Josh. You need to do the thing you're afraid of.”

Josh thought back to the list of behaviors he'd worked on. The truth was, some of them were daunting. He didn't want to do them. “I don't know,” he sighed. “I'm worried about being stuck when I leave here. It seems so easy when we're talking. Doing things successfully is another matter.”

“Then don't,” Nathan said.

Josh looked at him, puzzled. “But you just said to do them.”

“And you should.”

Josh raised his hands. “I give up. You've lost me. Should I do them or not?”

“You should,” Nathan said. “In fact, you must. But,” he added, leaning down from his towering height to get closer to Josh, “don't try to do them successfully.”

Back at the office, Josh sat at his desk and did something he hadn't done in a long time: He looked at his list of leads. Or, rather, he looked at the list without passing his eyes over it as if the names didn't exist.

Josh had built the list carefully—friends, family, contacts, referrals, and any other name that was a remote possibility for business. He knew that that list was critically important to his success, and he tried to read it with fresh eyes.

But still, he did nothing.

Maybe failure isn't the opposite of success, Josh thought angrily. But it sure as hell feels like it. Why can't I just do what I need to do?

Then Nathan's voice echoed in his ears. Don't try to do them successfully.

At first, it hadn't made any sense. It had seemed like nonsense to Josh. But then Nathan had explained that focusing on a successful outcome was what created his fear. “Until you get the experience to do it right,” the tall man had said, “you need to focus on just doing it. On achieving the failure, so you can get on with success.”

Achieving failure. It was a strange idea. But as Josh sat at his desk, understanding began to dawn on him. It's about learning, he realized. Not about right or wrong. If I just take action—make the attempt—I'll learn, and then I'll get better, whether I fail or succeed.

Josh returned to the top of the list. He was willing to start at the top and simply work his way down, but there was a part of his mind that was looking for an easy call, one that might have a little less potential for failure attached to it. He skimmed downward, his brain processing, but he could feel his energy waning. Josh sighed. He just wasn't good with failure. He knew there were people who seemed immune to rejection, but he just didn't feel like one of them.

He thought back to the early days of his relationship with Kiera. Even then, he'd been too afraid of rejection to even ask her out. He had been so desperate to be close to her that he'd panicked and asked her roommate out instead. He cringed as he recalled his blunder. The roommate, of course, was no dummy. She not only rejected Josh outright, but had sat him down on his sorry ass and called Kiera into the room.

Josh felt his cheeks flush as he recalled his embarrassment. She'd outed him right in front of Kiera, telling her that it was about time the two of them quit pretending and simply go on a date.

And they had, Josh thought. And here they were, married!

I guess some blunders are lucky ones, Josh thought with a smile.

Then he stopped. Cocked his head.

He scanned the list again, running his finger down the names. His finger stopped and his eyes narrowed. He looked at the name his finger was pointing to: Ben Halton, his neighbor and best friend, the one who'd chosen Amy over him. Knowing they were going to sell at some point, Josh had added Ben's name to his prospect list weeks ago for a future follow up. That, however, was not going to happen now. He was certainly not going to call Ben to talk real estate; in fact, he was unlikely to call Ben about anything.

How could they have chosen Amy over me? Josh wondered again. The sting of seeing her sign on their yard the night he'd returned from the weekend success seminar was still with him.

Some blunders are lucky, he thought. He looked at the list. Failure…“…isn't the opposite of success,” he finished aloud. Then he followed the myth with the truth, “It's the path to reach it.”

Josh tapped his pen on Ben's name on the list and picked up the phone.