Episode 147 – Learn How to Accept Failure
We often talk about in the show that more often than not, the very person that pulls us back to success is ourselves and one of the most disappointing setback is failure. People address failure by stopping. In this episode, Adam Stott talks with Ant Middleton who teaches us how to learn to accept failure so we can move forward and succeed with life and business.
Show Highlights:
- How important it is to be brutally honest with yourself
- Why is it better not to stay away from failure
- Acknowledging failure as an everyday part of life
- Keep going even though you are failing or you are going to fail
Links Mentioned:
Big Business Events Members Network
Transcript:
Please note this is a verbatim transcription from the original audio and therefore may include some minor grammatical errors.
Adam Stott:
Most high achievers and people achieving most of success have caught that mindset, but how do you cultivate it?
Ant Middleton:
And I think it goes to being … it goes back to yourself as an individual, being brutally honest with yourself. When you’re brutally honest with yourself, it allows you to be brutally honest with other people. And what I mean by brutally honest with yourself is we’ve all got flaws, right? We’ve all got weaknesses. It’s just about standing in the mirror, it’s telling and looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, yeah, this is my weakness, I acknowledge that. This is more like, this is an insecurity that I have or this is an area where I need to progress in. And the moment you do that, and you acknowledge that, it sorts of makes you feel happy with who you are, it makes you sort of know yourself, the best version of yourself.
That makes you bulletproof against any negativity because someone might say to you, “Well, you’re really weak in that area.” And be brutally honest to you and we don’t like the truth. But if you’re brutally honest with yourself, you can go. “I know that.” And you can process that. You can take any … “I know that. I’m working on that.” You almost just brought it back at people. But people are like, you know, “You’re a bit too big for your boobs.” “Well I was, I knew that.” But now afraid [00:02:11] and you know, you talk too much, but whatever it might be, or like yeah, “I know that, I’m we’re working on that.” It does, it makes you bulletproof. It makes you fully happy with yourself. And once you can be fully brutally honest with yourself, it’s what makes you limitless it. Then it’s actually—
Adam Stott:
So what do you do when you have the weaknesses, you’re being honest with yourself, your knowledge and, how do you get [00:02:35]
Ant Middleton:
You’ve got to just … again, put yourself on that front line. A lot of people, the word failure, they stay away from it. And people who have failure, they always might go want … it stops you from doing a lot of things, failure. You think, “Well, I can’t, I’m not going to go down. I’ve been … because I’m going to fail. But we fail. I fail. I’ve sat here and I’ve failed so many times up to this moment. And guess what? I’m going to fail so many times till the day I pass away.
Once you acknowledge that failure is everyday part of life, again, that makes you limitless because you’re not scared to fail. Therefore, you’re not scared to try different things, to put yourself out of your comfort zone. It’s not actually getting to the goal where you learn, it’s the journey to that goal. Keep going. Even if you know you’re going to fail, keep going and get as much out of that journey as you can. Even if you do fail by the time you get to that [00:03:38] point, sometimes I look at things, I think I’m never going to do that. I can’t, you know. But you know what? I’m going to give it a go. And I’ve learned so much from getting to that point even though I know … that I’ve had that foot forward, well actually, it’s what I’ve gathered along the way.
Ant Middleton:
Now, I’ve gathered so much tools to make my way around that, or maybe it’s come back and take a different route. And that’s what it does to have that positive … you got to not be scared of failure. Just accept that failure is everyday part of life. And once you do that, you will get out of your comfort zone and you will try things. Just like with kids nowadays, they’re scared of failing, and they don’t get out and do stuff because they’re worried about what people think about them, or how they’re going to be judged, how they’re going to, you know. That stops us from doing things because of that one word, failure. So, accept that it’s an everyday part of life.
Again, you’re going to fail because it is … it is life. You are going to fail. If you embrace it and you fit back into a positive and you use that to your advantage, that will again get you out of your comfort zone and it will make you limitless.