Success causes us to fail

Dear Lloyd,

I have this experience of reaching heights and becoming successful in what I do. Recently, it was a totally different story. When success is no longer there — and failure suddenly meets me face to face — what do I do?

Mar

Mar,

How many times we’ve failed isn’t as important as how many times we’ve stood up and continue our pursuit of success and happiness. At least this is what I’d like us to realize each time we fail. Everybody fails at something. Some didn’t bother to get up. Eventually they did but at the cost of time and opportunity.

A few years ago, I did a motivational talk before two real estate giants in Manila during their sales kickoff rally. Most companies do this every year. Back in the prepandemic days, there were face-to-face meetings. They gathered their sales people and hired a motivational speaker to speak and try to encourage their people to sell more this time as the speaker tried to equip them with knowled ge, wisdom and stories.

Hopefully after the one-hour program or so, participants would leave the venue with inspiration and drive to face the new year and yes, painful or not as it was, make the best effort to hit their quota for that period. It’s amazing to see their mix of emotions — from being happy to being excited to being afraid to being uncertain to being hopeful and more. It was because that year, anything could happen.

Should you want to succeed in any year — with or without pandemic — you will need to have a beginner’s mindset — as if nothing happened the previous year. Or if you’d like to consider believing that something huge really happened, make yourself believe that it’s done and it’s gone!

There were many things that happened in our past, a very good mix of ups and downs, good and bad. The danger of clinging to past excellent performances is you can get comfortable with your past record and therefore, might slow down your development. When full, hunger suddenly disappears. When you stop feeling hungry, you probably won’t attempt to find anything to eat — or do better.

Forgetting things that happened in the past doesn’t mean not taking everything you’ve learned. It only means that you have to accept the fact that you’re starting with a blank canvas. There’s nothing yet in your sales report, and you have to start again.

The thing is, there are many strategic moves that worked well for you previously that may totally ruin your present because they may no longer work. That is why it is important to calibrate the plans and strategies. Should you want to be a better performer in the past — no matter how recent it may be — you’ll have to have a better plan, definitely a far better plan than the last time.

For many people, starting over again isn’t really a comfortable experience. It takes away all the comfort we have painstakingly created over time and it opens up the gate of preconceived ideas of failure. Once unfamiliar, fear becomes so real. Once afraid, one can hardly make confident decisions.

But there is no other way. The idea of a lasting success may be comforting to imagine each time we make something work. Besides, is it not what we naturally desire to have — a lasting success? While it is what we desire, there is something else that is more important than ideal success. That is, the reality that success has its own expiration.

It may appear to be sad news. However, when you accept that idea, it can help you prepare for another success long before you reach your success’ expiration date. It’s not easy, I know. But you’ll keep on failing if you don’t realize that recent successes can also lead you to failure.

Start again with a beginner’s mindset, open to all opportunities for learning and you will turn your failure into a remarkable success.

Lastly, success works in two ways. It can make you believe that there’s nothing more to do and it can convince you that you won — temporarily.

P.S. The Public Speaking Institute runs a monthly certification program called Certified Public Speaker (CPS). Should you want to improve your communication skill, please go to www.thepublicspeakinginstitute.com. We’ll be happy to assist you.

Sgt. Lloyd A. Luna, PAFR, is the first registered speaking professional in the Philippines. He is a motivational speaker on leadership and bestselling author of Stepback: The Lost Art of Filipino Leadership. He is the chief executive officer of Stepback, a leadership and culture development company that helps leaders and organizations see the bigger picture in life and at work. Visit his website www.stepback.ph or email him at lloyd@ lloydluna.com.