OWNING OUR MISTAKES AND FAILURES

Everybody makes mistakes. Some mistakes are small and barely ripple through your Life. Others are HUGE
and impact your present and your future. Some mistakes are happy mistakes that lead to better days. Most
mistakes are near disastrous and we work hard to overcome them.

The difference between people who are successful despite the obstacles, mistakes, and failures is in how they
choose to handle them. They know that the one and only way to overcome a mistake or a failure is to admit
that you made a mistake or that you failed at something, learn the lesson and change your approach.

Life has shown us that you cannot fix what you do not acknowledge. Too often, people have a hard time
admitting that they’ve made a mistake or that something they did caused them to fail at a thing.

In order to move to the next level, you have to be honest with your authentic self and admit that you took a
wrong turn, made an error in judgment or simply fell asleep at the wheel.

Last summer, an acquaintance of mine called to tell me that he was powering down his business, packing up
his belongings and heading across the country to Colorado to attend a well-known Bible College in Denver. As
we talked about this new opportunity, I reminded him to keep his eyes on the prize and not get sidetracked by
“shiny baubles”.

In this case, “shiny baubles” represented his inability to stay focused on the prime directive. He has a very bad
habit of getting involved in other people’s businesses when they aren’t seeking his input or his help. The
rejection results in his becoming offended, bitter and angry. He lacks control once his feelings are hurt and he
lashes out inappropriately at his targets and exacerbates the situation even more.

So, I was not surprised when he called me a month into his classes to tell me that he had met with the Director
of Marketing for the school and was putting a proposal together to help them with their many yearly events
and leadership conferences. I, of course, warned him not to do it, telling him that he not only could but
inevitably would destroy that relationship.

As sure as duck fat fries are from Heaven, a few weeks later, I receive a phone call where he ranted and raved
about how useless, inept, unprofessional and unknowledgeable the folks were in the Marketing Department of
this college. Try as he might, he could not get them to see his value and use his services. I’m sure that his “bull
in a China shop” personality wasn’t doing him any favors either.

There are many ways that this situation could have had a better outcome.

His first mistake was in taking their soft “No” personally. They recognized that he was there as a student and
did their best to keep him in his lane. He let his feelings get the best of him and once he felt rejected, he began
to react to that.
He became frustrated and angry because he truly felt that he was better than the folks in that Department. His
problem was that they weren’t looking for him to teach them. He personalized his failure and allowed it to take
over his self-esteem. He made it so hard for them to be around him that they simply avoided anything but
surface contact and that made him feel and react even worse.

Secondly, he didn’t use the situation as a learning opportunity. Once things started to turn for the worse, he
should have immediately stepped back from the situation and reevaluated his part in the misunderstanding. He
should have been self-aware enough to analyze what in his delivery went wrong.

Once analyzed, he should have been able to adjust for that failure and move on. But, without introspection, he
fell into the Blame Game and came up with dozens of excuses for how they were wrong and he was right. Not
only did he reject sound counsel, he began to tally their errors.

In fact, he started obsessing over his failure. Every conversation began and ended with his tirades against or
about this group of people. I reminded him that they had gotten along for the past 20 years without his help but
there was no reaching him. He became trapped in an emotional doom-loop that disabled him and kept him
from moving on.

Now, unbeknownst to him, he was stuck on needing their approval. He gave power to their rejection by
holding on to the hurt and the pain. He needed to release them from his anger but his refusal to do so, kept him
bound and angry; barely able to keep it together. Had he allowed himself to step back from the situation, take
wise counsel, shift his viewpoint and move forward with a more positive perspective, the entire situation might
have turned around for him. At the very least, he would have felt better about everything.

Ultimately, he allowed the worst in him to take over. Things got so intense that within the first semester of a
three-year program, and not surprisingly, they asked him to leave the school’s program. He ended up having to
begin afresh in Denver.

But, to this day, he still hasn’t learned his lesson as he continues to try and insult people into doing business
with him.

In fact, even I have become weary from constantly hearing about what someone did or did not do correctly in
his estimation and began to distance myself.

But, what I realize the most is that this IS his business communication style and that unless he takes a fair and
honest look at himself, he will never end this cycle. He will be stuck on a Mary-go-Round of anger bitterness
and unhappiness that he could easily get off when he chooses to do so.