Nobody cares if you Lose! Just Win!

I mentioned that last week I wrote a couple of posts about failure that might never see the light of day. I am intrigued by how much I am bombarded by that lingering thought at the back of my mind. Is this the curse of entrepreneurship?

I keep freaking out about things not going according to plan. I take a look at my long list of to-do’s and criticize myself for not getting around to the ones that never got done, and I think to myself, hmm, what if this becomes the norm for the next decade? *shivers!.

This morning I had a deep & insightful revelation about what it means to keep playing the game and winning. It was so real and I felt my energy shift. I thought I am going to come here and capture it, as a manifesto for how I think about failure moving onwards in life.

LIFE IS OPTIMIZED FOR FAILURE.

The common theme of life is death, and the idea for the theory of evolution is that, only those that survive get passed on to the next generation. The chances of failure greatly exceed those of success. In your life, your business, your marriage, your job, you are much more likely to fail than to succeed. This triggering thought of the likely-hood for failure is what humans have worked so hard to mitigate against it since we walked on earth. We figured out modern housing, modern healthcare, modern transportation and mass education to ensure our species survives and passes on this survival instincts to the next generation. It is a deep and hard truth, we are most likely to die and be extinct than to thrive and succeed.

What a dark world view?! Could it be possible that I am just sensational for no reason? Or could it be that I am pragmatic?

I heard a Jim Rohn recording where he said;

“That’s the way it’s always been for 6000 (six thousand) years! Difficulty mixed with opportunity.

OH MY! SO WHAT!

There are only two things you can do when faced with the reality of death. One is to accept it and the other is to fight it. There is no in between, since, if you are in between , you have silently chosen death.

LIFE IS A FIGHT & EVERYONE IS EXPECTED TO FIGHT.

The modern life has accorded us a lot of benefits that sort of blind and numb us to the reality that everything is a fight and we have to engage in warfare. If we are constantly consuming easy things, fun things, enjoyable things, it’s not hard to forget that on a general scale, we should be much more than we are right now, we should do much more than we are doing at the moment. We might not come face to face with our limitations either in discipline or skill, and it might not bother us at all.

However, everyone is aware of this idea of fighting for something. All human stories are designed around it. I mean all of them. The hero’s journey- Our hero leaves for a quest, encounters tough times, overcomes them, returns to the village a celebrated conqueror, might even become a King. Or a man desires the love of a woman, pursues her, encounters challenges, eventually wins her heart, a happily ever after ensues.

Everyone lowkey knows you have to fight for everything you are ever going to have. You have to fight for it with your life- blood, sweat and tears. We celebrate those who show this exemplary effort. Those who win championships, those who win Nobel prizes, those who invent things that change the world. As a species, we are aware of the sacrifice they must have put to get these results.

and yet we struggle internally

There is no joy in great success without acknowledging the risk of great failure.

The Image of Success in our Society.

But we are consumed with the image of success, that we glorify it and vilify the process and likely hood for failure. There’s such a demand for success porn! A million hits on articles talking about success, than those talking about failure. Frankly, nobody cares about the failures. Nobody cares about the missed hits, the almost made it. People want to care about the wins, the home-runs. On the low, we design our pursuit this way too. Toward telling success stories and hiding failure stories. And maybe it’s okay. That’s how the world works.

It is important to know this, that as a culture, people generally move toward big success stories. Maybe it is a flaw in our design.

I am much more concerned with the tension between embracing an extremely high failure rate, compared to — trying to align our ducks for success. It seems to me for one to be truly successful, that we need to accept failure.

Two thoughts about accepting failure

1 accepting the reality of failure

2 accepting our responsibility against failure.

1. — We are much more likely to fail. And that’s okay. But I am afraid if you failed a lot, you might not have the internal drive to continue, therefore, you also need to embrace this idea of fighting failure.

2 — Accepting the responsibility against failure . (This is what I am now more excited about today.)

LIFE IS ABOUT PLAYING DEFENSE AS IT’S ABOUT PLAYING OFFENCE.

If you are doing anything worthwhile, there are known-knowns, known-unkowns and unknown-unknowns. ( I would love to explore this topic in detail later on). For a small business, you might be inventing something totally new, but we at least know some of the common reasons businesses fail, and we can actively mitigate against that. In fact, we should actively mitigate against that. Life is as much about playing defense, as it’s about playing offence. If you are aware of your enemies and the causes of death, sickness and disease, you should actively protect against that.

Blocks & Tackles

You need to block as you also tackle. In blocking, man! You just have to win. Or to put it another way, you just have to try your best to win! If you don’t you are going to fail. It’s much easier to fail than to win. Winning is hard. Not every body wins in anything. Life, business, marriage, career, parenting, faith and religion etc. It’s highly likely that you are going to lose.

Therefore, every day you wake up, remind yourself that Today could be the day you die, but it won’t happen on your watch! You will not be the type of person that allows things to happen to you. You will take responsibility for your life, your marriage, your business, your efforts. You will stay alive because you are willful and consistent.

The devil will come for you today. But he won’t catch you sleeping.
Stay Vigilant.

CONTEXTUALIZE THIS FOR YOURSELF

It may be your business, or your marriage, or your school, or learning. Remember that you need to fight against failure by doing all you can and playing good defense.

Don’t let it win over you!