Oh Failure

The one thing we fear the most, is often the thing we must embrace if we want to make a difference.

I am not sure what it is about failure that sends my mind spinning at times; yet at other times I embrace it with reckless abandon...aware of the importance of it on the road to having a meaningful life. 


The other day I was doing some public speaking.


I was planning to speak about 30 minutes. 


I ended up reworking my speech about 45 minutes before I was going to speak. Not sure I would recommend this, but it needed to be done.


Then, as I was walking up to speak, I was still figuring out my intro (since I had been reworking it in my head yet not come to a conclusion as to what I was going to say...)


I was scared to death. 


50-60 people were expecting me to say something inspiring for 30 minutes and I couldn't figure out the first 30 seconds. 


I wanted to bail.


But I refused. I knew I had to step into this moment.


So I ended up nailing the intro. 


Then, about 5-7 minutes into the speech, I lost where I was and where I was going. I look out and see all these people looking at me and in my head I am like, "All of these people are looking at me, I know I have something to say...it's just not coming out..."


At that moment, I decided I was going to keep going. I took some large internal breaths and I decided I was going to connect the audience at all costs. I let go of my need to be confident or whatever was going on inside, and I just kept going. I looked over my notes, picked a point I knew was strong, and went for it.


I spit in the face of my fears. It felt like I had knocked out the bully on the jr high playground. 


I decided. That they. Were more important. Than me.


The best way to overcome your fear of failure is to put someone else above yourself. 


Because in that moment, you realize that in order to connect to them (if you really want to), you are going to have to fail along the way.


But when they see that you are willing to do whatever it takes to connect to them,


It will move them.