Rebranding failure and time to rock the big rocks.
So here's the thing. I've said this before and I'll say it again and again. Repetition is what makes things stick after all and I'm in marketing. We marketers are all about repetition. Your success begins inside. Of YOU. When you stop playing the victim, stop comparing yourself to everyone else and focus on bringing what you do best out into the world, you'll get way more traction. Doors will open. Opportunities will present themselves.
It's amazing how much we self sabotage. We tell ourselves we can't and so we don't. It's called resistance. And it will keep you where you are. Every damn time.
Jim Loehr talks about the coach inside your head. The one that tears you apart every day. Stop. That's why success begins inside. When you start flipping the script from making excuses to why you can't to solving for why you can, good things will happen.
I know this first hand. I've beaten myself up for years. I've been in my own way. Worried about what others think and compared myself to successful people out there thinking they have some magic gene or quality that I don't. And that's why they're deserving of success. Wrong! They're successful because they committed and went for it. They also faced inner demons but found a way around them. They didn't quit when it got hard. They chose themselves. They chose to keep going. F*!k fear. Push through it. When you want to quit, remember what's on the other side and keep going. Not that I - or you - will ever completely stop comparing ourselves to others.
This week, I want to flip your script on failure and talk about a most ubiquitous business graphic: the four quadrants.
Failure needs a rebrand
I heard this recently and believe it's true. We're taught that failure is bad. To avoid it at most any cost. Yet on the other hand we're told to embrace it. In business, we're told to 'fail fast', to 'take risks'. But then we lack the political will and capital to fail if we do. Our company cultures often promote the desire to risk failure but then punish you for it because people at all levels are fearful.
No one wants to look stupid or foolish. Success is what is rewarded. Yet success usually comes with a string a failures along the journey. It's not a linear, tidy road. Messy it is. Because the messy is left out of the story, we only see the shiny bits. Just like the glamorous curated lives we see on social media, the detritus of innovation is left behind, polished and groomed for prime time. Companies and people like to show their best selves.
Society likes to see the best. Rewards the best. Advertising shows only the best. Perfect people. Perfect products. Perfect lives. And in turn, failure gets beaten up and skewered. Shamed into hiding. When in reality, it's failure that supports our successes. In the moment failure feels shitty.
In hindsight, failure marks our growth. Powers resilience. Our failures are often what we look back on and attribute our success. We would not celebrate our success if it weren't for what we had to overcome along the way. It would feel like cheating. Unsatisfying.
What if in the moment you could look at a failure and honor what it is teaching? What if failure was a springboard more than a setback? Imagine the leaps you might take.
The magic is in the upper right quadrant
It seems a square with four quadrants is standard issue for any business strategy session. Either that or a ven diagram. And it's always the upper right quadrant that you want to be in. But aren't. That's the quadrant of greatest long-term returns. But we spend time in the not urgent but not important quadrant. Because resistance wants us to live there. The ego wants us to live there. It feels threatened in the upper right. Because growth and prosperity live there.
Why are these so popular? Our brains need us to sort and categorize to make sense of things. Ultra rare is the lone genius who just pulls shit out of their head on a whim (i.e. failures happen). We need a process. Yes, even the most creative among us need a process to do their best work.
By putting things into tidy boxes we can see how we spend our time, and understand why we're not achieving the success we think we should and surface solutions to correct course. Usually, we find that the big rocks get cast aside by everything we're reacting to. It's intention and focus that live in the upper right.
With organization and process to declutter our mind we carve out mental space for high level thinking. Think about your home or office. When you know where everything's at you don't have to waste time digging through piles of stuff getting annoyed along the way. You find what you need and get to work. Clutter in your environment slows you down. Whether in your space or in your head.
What if you Marie Kondo'd your mind? Imagine how much time you could devote to meaningful work and get where you want to go sooner. That's how you grow. That's how you achieve more than you thought possible.
Clearing your mind frees up space for new thoughts and connections to form. It creates energy to power your thought flywheel. Think of time in this quadrant as a virtuous circle that takes you upward with each rotation.
You know how I opened with it begins inside? It's true. And That's why a clear head is important for your best work. Intrinsically you know that. Your brain, however, is spinning in a zillion directions, juggling a zillion to dos. Just stop. They're not all important.
Put another way, there's the example of the jar you fill with rocks, pebbles, sand and water. In order to fit the big rocks, they have to go in first. Then the pebbles, then sand, then water. You can fit so much more this way.
Think of the four quadrants like this:
Doing your best work comes from making connections from seemingly disparate concepts and things. Don't think you can't be creative if you're not an artist. There's creativity everywhere. And yes, even in the most mundane. While it may seem that some have a creative gene, you can develop your skill contrary to whatever excuses you make up. Just like you can build muscle through consistent weight training. The question is, are you willing to work in the upper right quadrant by giving up meaningless drivel that pulls you into the lower right not urgent not important quadrant?