The Monday Memo from John Stanko

819: Failure as Feedback

We are only one week away from “Celebrate a Failure” Week, during which I instill emphasize the notion that there’s no perfection this side of heaven, and that failure is a necessary albeit sometimes painful part of success, purpose, and productivity. If you would like to learn more about failure or how to celebrate, you can read my past Memos on the subject.
 
LET'S CHANGE THE NAME.
 
I’ve had many people tell me, “Dr. Stanko, I just can’t celebrate my failures. They are still too painful, or they don’t glorify God!” Even though I’ve written about this principle and even shared some of my own failures, you still may struggle with this concept of celebrating failure, too. That is why I’m proposing another name for failure, a name that is hopefully easier to accept. If you can’t embrace “Celebrate a Failure" Week, how about “Celebrate Some Feedback" Week? It isn’t as catchy, but I believe it’s just as accurate.
 
You see, failure is simply feedback. The feedback tells you that you need to make an adjustment because you are off course. When you accept this feedback, then you can make the necessary changes that will put you back on track and help you succeed. The astronauts that went to moon had to make a course correction every few seconds. If they had rejected the feedback of where they were, they would and could have shot right past the moon. They accepted where they were, however, and then did what they had to do to correct the situation.
 
I believe that our PurposeQuest is similar to what those astronauts encountered. For example, you send your manuscript to a publisher and they reject it. You should simply see this as feedback. You can change your manuscript to make it more acceptable, try another publisher, or write a whole new manuscript. If you experienced a broken relationship, you can reflect on that feedback and set a course that will make your next relationship more lasting and meaningful. If you started a business and you ran out of money, you can start again more intelligently as you use the feedback from the first business.
 
Failure is what you make of it. It can be devastating if you accept it as such. If you receive it as feedback, however, you can use it to do a better job and plot a new or revised course forward. The choice is yours.
 
WHO’S YOUR COACH?
 
I was watching a interview of an American baseball star recently, and it showed this man taking practice swings in the batting cage. Right behind the batter was his hitting coach, watching his every swing and giving him feedback. He was getting feedback on every swing, using that feedback to improve. As the season progresses, that batter’s batting average will be posted every day for all the world to see. He will have to face that feedback and then meet with his coach  every day to stay on course and be all that he can be.
 
Baseball players aren’t alone. Opera singers take lessons, and so do successful actors. Tennis players almost always have a coach who travels with them, helps them devise strategy, and provides immediate feedback on their performance. The most successful performers actually invite feedback—they encourage and even pay people to tell them where they are failing so they can improve. What about you? Who is your coach? What are you doing to encourage and process feedback?
 
I can answer the question in the title of this week's post by saying, "Yes, failure plays a practical role in life." It helps you be the best you that you can be. If you are serious about being a person of purpose, you must learn how to handle feedback, even the painful kind. If something isn’t working, you need to know that and learn what you can do to make it better.

Why is this so hard for spiritual people to grasp? Why do we feel that we have to do it alone? Why are we afraid to fail and learn from the failure? I leave you to come up with the answers to those questions in the coming week. As we approach “Celebrate Some Feedback” Week, you need to assess how much feedback you are prepared to handle. That will determine what success level you will achieve. As you prepare for August 6, I hope you have a good week of preparation.

818: An Important Addition

I have often written about failure and the role it plays in your development. Perhaps you have heard me present or read my four-question series designed to help people understand the important role that failure plays:

1. Is failure a learning experience?
2. Do you often learn more from failure than success?
3. Are you always to be learning and growing?
4. Then should you fail as often as possible?

Usually, people answer "yes" to the first three questions, but answer "no" or not at all on question four. I have come to see that I have been misleading people on that fourth question and I am here this week to tell you that I was wrong, or at least incomplete in my thinking where question four is concerned. You will have to read on to understand how I was wrong.

AN IMPORTANT ADJUSTMENT

I was teaching a class not too long ago and we were discussing failure, and it was then that I realized question four was incomplete. It should read

4. Then should you fail on purpose as often as possible? 

Think of the most famous example of failure in the world of business: Thomas Edison's discovery of the light bulb. Edison experimented and failed with thousands of materials to find the correct filament that would burn and give light for a long period of time. While you can say that Edison failed thousands of times, he failed with purpose. He was trying to achieve something and the achievement was so important and valuable to him that he persevered and eventually found success.

If you just set out to fail so you can learn, your failure will not be tied to anything important and will not lead you to any success. Therefore I was wrong when I urged you to fail. I am confident I am correct when I direct you to fail on purpose.

MORE EXAMPLES

A baby gets up every time he or she falls because the baby has purpose: learning to walk. You failed in school and gave wrong answer in the pursuit of learning. You did not hit every ball you swung at, did not make every goal you kicked a ball to score, nor did you hit every jump or foul shot.  Yet you kept swinging, kicking and shooting because you had a purpose to win and improve. You could tolerate failure because you had purpose.

What implications does this have for your PurposeQuest?  It has serious implications, for you will not tolerate or even allow failure unless it is in the pursuit of something that has overriding value, enough to keep you on the path to success no matter what the cost. What's more, you won't endure failure in searching for your purpose unless you see the value in the search and ultimate conclusion. Without that, you will be content with the status quo and endure failure if it leads to your success, which in that case is to preserve the status quo.

I am excited about my newfound discovery and adjustment that I know will help you comprehend how important it is to fail if you are in pursuit of something special. There are only two weeks to go, so I hope you are getting ready to celebrate a failure or two during the week of August 6-12. Until then, I am personally preparing for a wild celebration for I have had many failures on my way to success. Have a blessed week!

817: I Have Some Failures to Report

In case you just tuned in, I have declared the week of August 6-12 to be Celebrate a Failure Week the world over. The purpose of this week is to focus on the role that failure has played in your development and success. You can check out the previous weeks' posts to learn how you can celebrate, but the main way is to spend some time reflecting on failure, your response to it, and its possible benefits. So that you know you are not celebrating alone, I had a few failures this past week that I am celebrating, and I wanted to share them with you as we head toward August 6.

FAILURE NUMBER 1

As you may know, I started a publishing company a few years ago, and things have been going quite well. There are many challenges in publishing today, not the least of which is producing an author's manuscript with which they are pleased. I have been working with an author for the last 22 months and met with this author recently to see if we were ready to move on from writing to publishing. Over a meal, however, the author reported that the manuscript still wasn't satisfactory, and that the author had decided to move on in another direction. Bottom line: I had failed to produce something that was acceptable to my client.

What has my response been? I am celebrating! That failure has led me to re-evaluate my approach to editing, which in many ways has been passive. I have such respect for someone's creative project that I am sometimes too careful not to inject what I think will work in the process. It's too early to report any other conclusions, but I will continue to learn from that failure so I can be a better editor and coach.

FAILURE NUMBER 2

I am in the process of finalizing another container to Kenya that contains 25,000 library books, along with a lot of other supplies (you can read how you can help in my most recent blog entry). A friend and I went to a meeting of a unique group of women who meet four times a year to listen to projects that will impact women in the U.S. or around the world. They then vote, and the "winner" receives $100 from each of the women who are part of this organization. It is a great concept.

My friend and I went in January, made our presentation, but did win the vote. This past week we went and were not even selected to make a presentation. We failed! In January we struck out (or missed the penalty kick for my soccer friends), but in July we didn't even get into the game! What has my response been to that failure? It has been the same as a high jumper who knocks off the bar; I am ready to jump again!

I have revisited why I am doing what I do in Kenya in the first place. I have gone back and reminded myself of how the Lord has provided in the past. And I am praying more fervently than before I went to meeting, asking, "Lord, what am I missing? Open my eyes to see Your provision!" It is interesting that as I was writing my blog post this morning, someone donated $1,000 before I ever finalized the post! I am reminded today that God is able to provide for the shipping.

I am using both failures to be thankful for my successes. I am also using them as learning lessons along the way, so that they are not really failures, but installments in my education. My failures this week will make me a better writer, a better editor, a better servant of the people in Kenya, and for all those reasons and more, I celebrate my failures! Yes, they were humbling, but humility always comes before honor!

Do you have any failures you would like to share with my readers? If you do, then feel free to attach them as a comment on the site where this entry is posted.  Thank you and let's make August 6 a special day as we collect our failure stories, and give glory to God for His ability to bring good out of almost any bad situation.

816: Halls of Failure

In case you missed the announcement a few weeks, by the authority vested in me as a purpose coach and teacher, I have declared the week of August 6-12 officially to be Celebrate a Failure week the world over. During that week, I urge you to find every way possible to celebrate the powerful role of failure in your life or the life of your organization. You can read the last few Memos to discover some suggestions of how to celebrate. This week, however, I want to talk about the halls of failure, of which there are quite a few in my country. These are places where thousand of people come every year to honor those who failed regularly and with distinction in their careers.

Where are these halls of failure, you may ask? There is one in Canton, Ohio, another in Cooperstown, New York, and another in Springfield, Massachusetts, just to name a few. If you follow such things, you know that these are the locations of the professional baseball, football, and basketball halls of fame. Let's talk about why I call them halls of failure instead of the halls of fame.

FAILURE IGNORED

Let's first look at baseball (sorry to my non-U.S. readers). The best batters in baseball failed at least 65 percent of the time when they came to bat. The best pitchers failed as many as 40 percent of the time when they pitched, not to mention how many "non-strikes" they threw. The best fielders failed only about 10 percent of the time, but some of the managers remembered in the hall of failure lost almost as many games as they won.

In football, the hall of failure quarterbacks missed 50 percent of their pass attempts. The best running backs fumbled numerous times and the best defenders missed many tackles. In basketball, some of those enshrined in the hall missed 40 percent of their free throws. Others turned the ball over (gave it to the other team) hundreds of times and many lost games for their team when it counted most -- at the very end when they were the last ones to touch the ball.

You know that these halls where the greatest players are memorialized are not called halls of failure but instead halls of fame. They are places where thousands pay money to go and remember the greatest players, regardless of how many times they failed. In fact, no one even remembers how many times they failed. Their failures are ignored in the face of the successes they enjoyed.

FAILURE FORGOTTEN

What about the players memorialized in these halls of fame? What is their attitude toward failure? The statistics I quoted above are accurate; they did indeed encounter many failures in their careers. The key to great success for them was that failure did not define who they were or the legacy they left. Consider Michael Jordan, perhaps the most famous basketball player of the modern era and these facts about him in his own words: "I missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

The great players learn to forget their failures -- or at least to learn from them to improve. They study what they did wrong and what they would do again if faced with a similar situation. They failed so much that they learned how to succeed. More importantly, they did not allow failure to define them because they did not quit.

So what's your story? How many times have you failed? Truth be told, you probably haven't failed nearly enough to be successful. Have you allowed past failure to limit your attempts to succeed today? Have you allowed the voice of past failure to coach your play today? I'm not referring to your sports career, but to your attempts to write, act, lead or parent. If you don't learn to forget your failure, no one else will ignore it. That's why we are celebrating failure, so can laugh at it and move on to success, however you define success for your life.

Don't miss this wonderful chance to put failure in its rightful place as a teacher and mentor. Join with me on August 6 and the days following to put failure in perspective. If nothing else, take a moment now and then to reflect on the truth found in Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Talk about how God has worked God in and from your failure and then go out and do something great that your failure taught you to do. Have a great week and preparation time leading up to August 6.

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MINISTRY UPDATE: I just posted a ministry update to let you know what I am up to for the next few months or so. Please read it, pray, get involved, and support the work of my ministry as God leads you to do.