If you try and fail then at the very least you learn something. However, if you never try then you are guaranteed to learn absolutely nothing. In today’s episode we discuss a powerful insight from philosopher Soren Kierkegaard that reminds us that failure can be our best teacher at key moments in life.
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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf
Transcript
Hey everybody.
Speaker:Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Again, thanks so much for tuning in whether you're seeing this on
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Speaker:A free copy of my book, bridging the gap and trying to get that out
Speaker:to as many people as I can bliss.
Speaker:So please, there'll be a link here.
Speaker:Grab that link, get yourself a free copy.
Speaker:I'm going to send you a chapter every two days.
Speaker:You're going to love it.
Speaker:So make sure you do that now today, we're going to talk about a quote from
Speaker:one of the really interesting guy.
Speaker:His name is Soren Kierkegaard trust saying that.
Speaker:Soren Kiki got really interesting life.
Speaker:He dealt with a lot of sadness, a lot of isolation.
Speaker:He was a very solitary figure.
Speaker:He spent a lot of his time just thinking and writing and staring out the window.
Speaker:You know, I got a young family.
Speaker:My kids are just, you know, wild.
Speaker:I would love to just, you know, stare out a window and do some writing.
Speaker:That'd be lovely.
Speaker:But anyway, Saren Keke a God.
Speaker:He's one of the great philosophers of the last few hundred years.
Speaker:I've got a really good quote for him.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:It is better to try something and.
Speaker:Then to try nothing and succeed, the result might be the same, but you
Speaker:won't be, we always grow more through.
Speaker:Then victories.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Where do we start with this one?
Speaker:How good is that last section?
Speaker:We always grow more through defeats than victories.
Speaker:Have you found that to be true in your own life?
Speaker:If you think about it, it's often the times where we filed where things
Speaker:were really hard and difficult that we really grew, and we really changed,
Speaker:you know, if we just win all the time, if we're just constantly winning.
Speaker:I dunno, there's a danger there of kind of hubris, isn't it narcissism
Speaker:of kind of ascribing that your success to your complete and utter brilliance.
Speaker:But it's when we fail that we have to kind of try again that we grow.
Speaker:So it's beautiful that Kiki got here is giving us this simple idea.
Speaker:If we try something and fail, there's a relationship between that
Speaker:and trying nothing, because if we tried, nothing will always succeed.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So we'll, we'll succeed in achieving absolutely nothing.
Speaker:But when we fail, we don't achieve nothing.
Speaker:If we don't try, we definitely achieve nothing.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So if you don't join that team, go for that promotion apply for that job.
Speaker:Try that relationship make that phone call.
Speaker:If you don't do any of that, then you are guaranteed success.
Speaker:The success you'll get is a success of achieving.
Speaker:Absolutely nothing, but it's predictable.
Speaker:And you know that you can do it, but when you try something, when
Speaker:you actually get out of that comfort zone and try something difficult,
Speaker:the risk of failure is absolutely.
Speaker:And it's present for everybody.
Speaker:Like it doesn't matter if you're an absolute world champion at something, the
Speaker:risk of failure is still there, right?
Speaker:Like you can be a world famous athlete, you can be a world, famous
Speaker:musician, politician, whatever.
Speaker:And the risk of failure is always.
Speaker:And I've got some, you know, I've got to arrange your friends that are in politics.
Speaker:And, you know, they often say that, you know, almost nobody ever gets
Speaker:to leave on their perfect terms.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:They keep trying, they keep doing stuff, they keep campaigning and doing
Speaker:things, but they're always at risk of not succeeding, but it's that constant
Speaker:effort and energy of constantly trying things that keeps people in the game.
Speaker:So what Kiki God is telling us here is that there's something unique about
Speaker:being human is that we have this constant invitation to stay exactly as we are.
Speaker:We have this invitation to grow.
Speaker:If we pursue the invitation to grow.
Speaker:Then we're very much at risk of failure, depending on what it is.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:I mean, sometimes we can try things that we know we're going to succeed at because
Speaker:they're not particularly difficult, but isn't it true in your life that
Speaker:when you really try things out of your comfort zone, the risk is ever present.
Speaker:This is the mystery of human life.
Speaker:This is a mystery of personal development, growth goals, motivation, all this
Speaker:stuff that I'm passionate about.
Speaker:And you probably are too.
Speaker:If you're watching.
Speaker:Is that there's a, there's an admission price.
Speaker:Isn't there, there's a ticket cost that if you want to stay exactly the
Speaker:same, you don't have to pay any price.
Speaker:You just do exactly what you did yesterday.
Speaker:And things are gonna be exactly the same.
Speaker:But I'm here to encourage you to say that if you want something different, you're
Speaker:going to have to try something different.
Speaker:You're going to have to do something, have to make that call apply for that job.
Speaker:Ask that person out for a coffee.
Speaker:That scary, right?
Speaker:Because it's cause it's scary, but it's that ability to confront difficult things.
Speaker:That's so beautiful about what it means to be human.
Speaker:So I just want to encourage you.
Speaker:I want to say to you, are you avoiding something at the moment?
Speaker:Is there something that, you know, you're telling yourself a story about
Speaker:that I could do this, but I don't want to do this and I've I try this.
Speaker:It might fail, go and fail.
Speaker:Fail massively.
Speaker:I've been teaching my kids since they were like this big fail, do
Speaker:big ones, massive ones, um, because you know, be frivolous about it.
Speaker:And I don't even, I'm having a joke with you here.
Speaker:Don't be afraid to fail because your failures, your failures will change
Speaker:you and they'll strengthen you.
Speaker:And they'll push you a little bit closer to where it is that you want to be.
Speaker:And you'll be a more complete and full person.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So get off the metaphorical couch of life.
Speaker:I need to keep getting myself off the couch of life and doing difficult things.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Make sure you've subscribed.
Speaker:Grab a free copy of bridging the gap.
Speaker:Go bless your friends.
Speaker:My name's Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:I'm going to have another message for you tomorrow.
