Get OVER Failure, Deal with DISAPPOINTMENT & Move Forward AGAIN | Tom Bilyeu

Everybody, welcome to another episode of Impact Theory. Today, we are going to be talking all about dealing with disappointment. This is something I know a lot about. I'm sure all of you know a lot about this, but there is a way to get over it and to make sure that we don't waste any time stuck in that period of disappointment. We may need to do a period of mourning, but that we don't allow ourselves to get stuck there. We're able to mourn, move past it, and get going again. All right. First question is, how do I stop myself from beating myself up for trying to do something that failed miserably and then continuing to overthink everything about what happened? Thank you so much for any advice and assistance that you can provide. Okay. Here is how to conceptualize failure and the disappointment that goes along with it. Once you understand that what the human animal is designed to do is learn, then you have to ask yourself if what has made the human animal the most apex of apex predators the world has ever seen, the most capable of completely changing its environment, what is it that allows them to learn fast? And the answer is failure. Now, the reason that failure is truly useful and I'm not just saying that to make you or myself feel better. In fact, I wish that it wasn't the way to learn the fastest, but the reality is the reason that it works so well is that when you fail, you trigger areas of the brain that are focused on memory and focus. So, you've got the memory side, so you're going to remember this. You've got the pain. This does not feel good. I do not want to go through this again. So, you've got that, which heightens your emotions, which makes you more likely to remember this thing moving forward, and then it also narrows your attention. So, you're really looking at why did this go wrong? And when you have the sense of I never want to repeat this, and you're looking very closely at why did this go wrong? Now all of the sudden failures, because of what it does to your brain, and quite frankly, because you're in the mix, you're trying things, and we learn better from doing than from reading about it or hearing about it. So, failure suddenly become the most information-rich data stream on planet Earth, heightens your likelihood of remembering, and it focuses you in on exactly what's the problem. So, now, even though failing sucks, part of what makes it valuable is that it sucks. In fact, it may suck in order to make it valuable. Let that sink in. That nature went, "Huh, when this happens, in order for this to be useful for this animal, for this evolutionary creature, I need to make sure that it becomes advantageous. So, that as they make mistakes, assuming that they don't get eaten by a lion, I want to make sure that they don't put themselves in that position again." And so, we have to learn from some method. And the method that gets us moving, taking action, trying things, feeling the pain, focusing, that's going to be the thing that we're going to get the most takeaways from. So, now, as you reframe what failure is, failure is not proof that you're a loser. Failure is the process by which you become better. Okay? Failure is not the process that reveals that you're a loser. Failure is the process by which you become better. That is the name of failure. So, now, when you fail, why would you beat yourself up over it? It's the nature of progress itself. There is no way to get better without failing. It's the fastest way, it is the most effective way, it is necessary, you have to do it. And by the way, for you to have failed at something, you showed the courage to try it. So, instead of wasting time beating yourself up over the fact that something went wrong, we're going to say, "That's the nature of progress. We have to try something. It's not going to work as well as we want it to, or I may fall flat on my face. I may outright embarrass myself. And if I let that break me, I will fail to learn the lesson." But if I do what nature is compelling me to do, and I focus on what went wrong, "Why did this happen?" Because I never want to go through this again. You stack enough of those "What went wrong? I never want to go through this again." Enough of those together, and you actually get good. And translating potential into skill set is the name of the game. And you will never do that more efficiently than you will through failure and mistakes. So, allowing yourself to wallow in disappointment doesn't make any sense. It's the learning process. This is what you have to do in order to get good. So, there's no reason to spend a lot of time being disappointed. You brush yourself off, you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, and you get going. That's it. That is the physics of progress. All right, guys. If you're going to unlock your potential and achieve everything you've ever wanted, you are going to have to constantly be making progress towards your goals. So, what do you do when you get stuck? The bad news is, getting stuck happens to everyone at some point. It's pretty much unavoidable. But the good news is that if you're willing to take action, there is a framework that you can follow to get back on track. If that sounds familiar, or if you're stuck in a rut and not achieving your goals as fast as you want, I've pulled a class out of Impact Theory University that you need to watch right now. It's called Six Steps to Getting Unstuck, and you can watch it for free at unstuck.impacttheory.com. Inside, I'll teach you about how to use cognitive re-frames, my four-level value stack to becoming unstoppable, as well as the single most important thing to start doing today to regain momentum. To watch this free preview for Impact Theory University, go to unstuck. I'll see you on the inside, guys. All right, take care and now back to the episode. How do you restructure yourself and your goals after falling off of a designated path? Should goals be fixed or malleable depending on the journey undertaken? All right. First of all, everything in life is ultimately malleable to some extent. We are not blank slates, so you can't just infinitely change yourself, but things are pretty changeable. Uh as Heather Heyer says, we are not a blank slate, but we are the blankest of slates. I think that's the right way to look at it. So, here's how I break it down. I've got my mission, my North Star, my like proper goal, the thing I'm trying to do. Then I have what most people think of as goals, which are the paths. So, I want to win a gold medal in the Olympics. That's a goal. Maybe I think I'm going to win a gold medal in gymnastics, but I find that I can't pull it off. I aged out and I never quite got there, and so I switch over to archery. I'm making this up, but this archery is actually an event where you can be successful deeper into your life. The goal, win a gold medal at the Olympics. The path, swimming, tennis, archery, whatever. And so I'm going to be flexible on what my path is. Now, in business, man, let me tell you, I'm trying to build the next Disney. All right, rad. Now, the path to get there, I wouldn't have told you two years ago was going to be NFTs. And now NFTs is a huge part of my strategy. So, the goal of pulling people out of the Matrix at scale using storytelling, that remains true, and that's why I'm building the next Disney. So, that's my goal, that's my mission, that's my North Star, that's what I'm trying to do. Now, do I do that through YouTube videos? Do I do that through um NFTs? Do I do it through getting a show on Netflix? What's it going to be? I don't really care, to be honest. I want to do what is at whatever is most efficient and effective at getting me to the goal, which is to pull people out of the matrix at scale through storytelling. Okay? So, you have to learn to differentiate between your mission and the path to get there. Because you could say that my goal is to um let's say make a In fact, 5 years ago, I would have told you that I want to have printed comics in comic book stores and absolutely killing it. I want one of those comics to be turned into a major motion picture um that, you know, ends up in theaters. And that would be one path. But now, I'm like, I want to do an NFT. Forget about printed comics, they're absolutely laughable. Uh we do web comics now, but that was a whole big transition that I wouldn't have anticipated. So, that was already one switch of some would say goal, I would say path. Now, NFTs has become a huge part of that. And so, not focusing on the web comics in isolation, but the web comics and how they can feed into the NFTs or even the NFTs can feed into the comics, and then how we translate that ultimately into, let's say, a series that's going to end up on streaming. Okay? So, a lot of the elements, if you'd asked me 5 years ago, would have sounded very different than they sound now. So, I don't think of that as um I would never want those to be fixed where it's either I get printed comics to work or I don't. It's like you get in there, and if it doesn't make sense anymore, there was a whole host of reasons why it didn't make sense to pursue printed comics, but I didn't know until I failed at printed comics, so that's another thing to think about. Because by getting in there, trying it, and seeing what the problems were, I was like, "Wow, why would anybody do this? This does not make sense. This is is antiquated. This is the past. I want to be involved in the future. But I needed to get in there and do it. And until I did that, I wasn't going to be able to figure those things out. I couldn't think my way through that problem. I had to feel my way through that problem. So, that's really the key. My North Star, my mission, that's pretty static. And I won't say that it never changes cuz it was at when I was at Quest, it was ending metabolic disease. I moved over to Impact Theory and it became pulling people out of the Matrix at scale using stories, okay? So, two different things. Um was able to pivot that. But now, once I'm in there, until I give up on my North Star, which something absolutely major would have to happen, meaning I would have to believe it is no longer worthy of pursuit. Now, if I believe it is no longer worthy of pursuit, then I will change it. Or I'm not having fun pursuing it, whatever the case may be. But my paths, my paths are just questions of good sense. What's working? What's not working? What can I change to get there more efficiently, more effectively? So, don't allow yourself to get bogged down in a path which should be easily discarded, but don't give up easily on a mission which should be far more firm. All right. Next up. What should someone do when trying to make a career out of passion and that fails? The answer is, what do you mean fails? So, we've already covered that failure is a key part of the process of progress. So, I think a key insight that will help is that if you want to achieve anything significant in your life, you have to understand that it's a game of attrition. Okay? It's a game of attrition. What do I mean by that? Most people quit. It isn't that the people that end up winning never failed. It's that they didn't quit when they failed. Now, why do people quit when they fail? It isn't because they lose money. That hurts. That's going to make it harder, but that's not why they quit. Why they quit is it becomes emotionally devastating, and they're not able to re-center themselves, self-soothe, remind themselves why they started, right? That North Star, the mission. Why am I doing this? Why do I care about this? To reorient themselves around I care about this for a reason. It is bigger than myself. This is not just about money. I'm here to add value, to help people, to elevate, whatever. Trust me, you want to attach yourself to that because when you're doing something that only stands to benefit you, it won't have the motivating factor that helping yourself and other people is going to have. Definitely want to help yourself, but you also want to help other people. And when you have a North Star goal mission that is that, it's what I call honorable and exciting. Okay? It's honorable in that it elevates not only yourself, but other people. It's exciting. You're just into it. Whether you should be or not is irrelevant. You are into it, and it serves humanity. Okay, when you have that goal that's exciting and honorable, now all of a sudden, when you, quote unquote, fail, you're just asking yourself, "Am I still into this? Do I still love this? Is this still my passion?" Because if it is, I'm going to get back up and keep going. I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to allow myself to be another one of those people that when they fail and it hurts that they just give up. Don't let that be you. There is a phenomenal quote from Winston Churchill, and it goes like this. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. Now, when you can go from failure to failure to failure without losing your passion, you're really onto something. But that's going to be up to you because there's not going to be anybody there to encourage you, to coach you, to push you on. You have to do it yourself. And so you've got to do the work of making sure that you're really connected on a deep emotional level to that thing that you're pursuing. Now, if you do that, then that real passion and belief will be there waiting for you when the absolute gripping sting of failure occurs. Because at that moment, you're going to ask yourself one question. We all do it. Why am I doing this? And if you don't have a compelling answer, you will quit. But if you have a compelling answer, and you really are passionate about this thing, then it's just about self-soothing and recognizing that failure is part of the game. And so we pick ourselves up, square ourselves off, and get moving again. And that is the only way to succeed. Emotions should never stop you from achieving your goals. So, if you feel stuck, overwhelmed, low on confidence, you're beating yourself up, or you feel like you're not deserving of the things you want in life, I have something to tell you. Emotions are not facts, and you should never let them hold you back. And yet I find that people do this all the time. They mistake that feeling for objective truth, and it sends them in this downward spiral. Reaching greater levels of success in life means knowing how to use your brain. And if you're in a rut right now, or if you've been struggling for a while to achieve your goals, then I've pulled a class from Impact Theory University to help you get back on track. It's called Six Steps to Getting Unstuck, and it's for anyone who wants to know the exact steps to achieving big goals when life puts challenges in your way. If you want to check it out, go to unstuck.impacttheory.com to get access. It's a free preview. All right, guys. I'll see you on the inside. Now, let's get back to today's episode. How do you discern preventable mistakes from ones we simply could not see at the time with the knowledge we have? How do we truly appreciate and learn the lessons of these failures? Okay, so I wouldn't worry so much about whether a mistake was preventable or not cuz that implies you want to know when you should beat yourself up for the mistake and when you shouldn't. The only thing that you should be doing when you make a mistake is learning. Immediately go into learn mode. Assume everything is {quote} your fault, that all of this could have been prevented if you had made a different decision, but we're not going to punch ourselves in the mouth over this. We simply want to understand, okay, what could I have done differently to get a result that I wanted? Because to me, there is an answer to did I make the right or wrong decision? And it goes like this. If you made the right decision, it moved you closer to your goal. If you made the wrong decision, it held you neutral or moved you away from your goal. Once you understand, everything just goes to that filter. Now, it's just oh, okay, cool. So, this was a wrong choice in that it held me neutral or moved me away from my goal. And if either of those two two things is true, it doesn't say that I'm a bad person or I'm a loser or I'm a failure, it just says what I tried didn't work. Now, if what I tried didn't work, my next question is, what could I have done that would have worked or at least had a higher likelihood of working? Now, to do that, you have to completely take responsibility. This did not work because I made the wrong decision and it was the wrong decision for this reason. Now, when you can do that and say that sentence without feeling badly about yourself because you're going to push back, you're not going to want it to be your fault, you're going to want it to be anybody else's fault, but when you do that, you failed to learn the lesson, which means you failed in vain, which means you're not going to get anything out of that other than emotional distress. You're going to have to constantly try to wall yourself off from the reality. When, on the other hand, you embrace that this really is important. I have to figure out to get to my goal. I have to figure out what to do differently. So, by owning it, you keep the control, you recognize that you can do something different, and then it's just all about figuring out what that next thing is. So, don't worry about um whether you should have known better, any of that, because if you fail, even if you couldn't have known better, how is that helpful? You just need to figure out, cool, what can I do next time? What can I do next time? How do I start again more intelligently? That should be the only question on your lips. Next. How do you deal with the time lost from failure, especially when you have nothing to show for that time? For example, I just got rejected from a job that would have changed my life, but now I have to spend upwards of three to five years just to get to that level of income experience somewhere else. Okay. That's not true. So, right now, the only path you see before you makes it seem like it's going to require you three to five years just to get to that level of income experience, but let's remember, we had that opportunity present itself once before. Who says it's not going to present itself again tomorrow? Now, the fact that we didn't get that role, that's what we have to figure out. Why not? And what can we do next time to ensure that we do? There's a great quote, I forget who it's by, forgive me, but it goes, this is a paraphrase, but it goes like this, "Luck is like a bus, and another bus is going to come five minutes later. The question is, do you have the fare to get on the bus?" That [ __ ] is dope. Once you understand that luck favors the prepared, meaning that the people who are {quote} lucky are the ones that actually had the skill set to take advantage of that luck. And that's why the awesome way to think about it is like a bus. There's going to be another one coming all the time. They're constantly coming. But if you can never get on one because you don't have the skill set to take advantage, then you're never going to be {quote} lucky even though all of those opportunities have presented themselves. So this is really a question of skill set. Now I promise you, if you gave me three to five years and pointed me at whatever it is that you're trying to do, I would by leaps and bounds. I'm going to try to get there in six months. So if we really think it's going to take five years, I'm going to try to get that good at that thing in six months. And I would just tell you, I have a history of being able to pull that off. Now, why am I better? Am I smarter? No. I am definitely not. Remember, I'm the guy whose mother quietly assumed I was going to fail. My best friend said, "I just assumed you were going to marshmallow your way through life." My now father-in-law, when I asked for his blessing to marry his daughter, he said no. These were not people that misidentified me. They had accurately identified me. But what they didn't factor in is that I could change. And so I just set about turning my potential into actual skill set. So instead of being somebody with a lot of potential, like we all are, I became a person with a lot of skill set. And that skill set I have leveraged to do extraordinary things with my life. But it was a lot of [ __ ] hard work around one, making massive demands of myself. So not allowing myself to say, "Oh my god, it's going to take three to five years." [ __ ] that. It might take the average person who's not willing to do what I'm willing to do three to five years. I'm going to spend way more time. And I'm going to be constantly owning everything in my life so that I can get better. I can try different things, new things. I'm going to stare nakedly at my inadequacies and figure out, "Why did I get rejected?" I will ask, "Hey guys, out of curiosity, and trust me, I have thick skin. It would really be powerful to me and my career if you could tell me what made you choose somebody else? What was it about me? And I can take anything. If I don't seem educated enough, knowledgeable enough, I'm not I don't speak fast enough, I'm not funny enough, whatever. I just want to know the truth. You hated my shoes. I just want to know the truth. And you'll be surprised. People will actually give you an answer. May not be the full totally unfiltered answer, but they'll usually give you some pretty useful information if you make it clear that that's what you want. You don't want them to pull punches and that this is really something designed to help you get better. And that's the key. And if you can make them see that boom, you're off to the races. But in all of this, you've got to really want it. You got to really want it. And you have to be willing to fail over and over and over because success is going from failure to failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. And there it is. That's how we do it. That's how we avoid wallowing in disappointment. That's how we put ourselves back together and get going and learn and learn at a supercharged rate. Failure is your greatest teacher. But you have to be willing to admit you've made a mistake. And that's it. If you can do that, oh my god, the universe will open up to you. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me. Now, go forward, try things, take risks, fail, pick yourself back up, and keep going. Don't lose that enthusiasm. And speaking of things that you should be enthusiastic about, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.