The Fine Art of Failure

"I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed." 

- Booker T. Washington

A friend recently mentioned an incident with a young intern who was told that their part of the project was not up to the level the team needed to make the proposal succeed. The intern felt picked on, got defensive angry, and resorted to name-calling. My friend took them aside and tried to reason that it was not personal and, in fact, there were positive aspects in what they had turned in, but that they needed to try a little harder. He suggested shadowing others in the group with more experience might help them improve how to put the proposal together. This young person apparently had never faced honest criticism and became extremely upset. The intern, who held a lot of promise, decided to quit that day rather than face that they had not wildly succeeded beyond all expectations the first time at bat.   

We both were willing to excuse it as some youthful overconfidence when I stumbled across a Psychology Today article called "Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges" by Dr. Peter Gray. It spoke to the fact many students are starting college without basic life skills to help them handle adversity or even failure. It's a result of controlling parents pushing their kids too hard to be successful or refusing to see their child's foibles and blaming everyone in sight for their own parenting misdeeds.  

These well-meaning parents have been orbiting their children for years to prevent adversity, including dealing with disappointments or even simple life challenges, to darken their child's door. One university reported that emergency calls for counseling had doubled over even the simplest disagreements, such as a student being called a bitch by her roommate or dealing with finances for the first time. Two other students needed counseling after they called the police when they spotted a mouse in their off-campus apartment. The officer was kind enough to set a mouse trap for the errant rodent.  

I've worked with many young adults, and most of the time, I've found them to be hard-working, conscientious, and have high emotional intelligence. However, one in four have difficulty taking direction, listening to differing opinions, and completing their projects within the specifications. When you offer feedback that is not glowing, they become defensive and extremely hard to work with. You wonder how they can fall apart over a comment like, "Hey, on the next set of reports, could you make the copies a little darker?"  

Our society is now reaping the effects to ensure our children have every advantage for some; it's not the path to success those parents had expected. 

In their quest to create successful children, these well-meaning parents have over-scheduled to the point their children have little downtime to examine who they are because each block of time is devoted to baseball, football, soccer, ballet, piano, etc. They are expected to exceed, and when they don't, it's not because they might lack the drive or talent but because the coach, the teacher, or the director needs to give them a fair shake. Worse, some parents do their children's homework to keep their grades up while rushing from one activity to another. The reality is that the facade will crack. The test grades will prove that the brilliant insights these kids have at home, for some reason, do not transfer to the classroom.  

These kids grow up to feel unworthy at the dawn of any adversity, and the rate of depression among young adults is at an all-time high. A  2012 Healthline article written by Michael Kerr found that:

• 1 out of every 4 college students suffers from some form of mental illness, including depression
• 44% of American college students report having symptoms of depression
• 75% of college students do not seek help for mental health problems

These statistics keep some college professors from giving bad grades for fear of causing emotional distress that can lead to severe psychosis. As a result, colleges lower their standards because of fear of lawsuits resulting from nervous breakdowns or suicides. Of course, this is not news to teachers who have been seeing this trend for years, and now those overly protected children are off to college, no more able to handle things than when they were in the sixth grade.   

This is why we must sit our kids down and tell them failure's okay. Heck, a good manager will tell their staff to try something new even if it doesn't always work out - hell, it might take many times at bat to even make contact with the ball. It's okay - that's life, and not everything you try will go perfectly the first time, the sixth time, or the hundredth time. It might even be good to abandon the whole concept of per; it just doesn't exist.

Sorry, you A-type personalities, you can try for excellence and go beyond the project's parameters, but it will never be perfect, so let yourself and your kids off the hook. Studies have shown that many successful CEOs and American Presidents were C students who could see the big picture rather than fixating on tiny details, which slowed them down. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates were C students, as were John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George Bush Sr. and Jr.  

One of my colleagues told me recently that her son was asked to do a paper on a historical figure, and one of the paragraphs had to be a time that person faced adversity or failure. It is an important lesson for kids to absorb that greatness is not achieved overnight; it can be lifelong. Here's a short list of great people who failed many times before they finally got it right:

• Thomas Edison tried 1,000 light prototypes and finally successfully created the light bulb. 
• Albert Einstein was expelled from school and refused admittance to Zurich Polytechnic School. 
• Oprah Winfrey was fired from her job as a TV reporter because she was "unfit for TV."
• Dr. Seuss's first book, To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected 27 times. 
• Steven Spielberg was rejected by the University of Southern California Film School three times. 
• After one show at the Grand Old, Elvis Presley was fired and told to return to driving a truck. 
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, but it didn't stop him
  
  from pursuing what he loved doing. "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions, I have been entrusted to take the game-winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Success takes risk, and risk comes with failure. I've had so many projects never come together like I thought they would. But I learned so much more from the things that fail than I do from the things that are a success, and that trial and error makes the things that succeed that much sweeter. Failure helps me figure out what my clients want by eliminating the parts that have failed in the past. It helps me figure out what will work in the future and gives me the strength to take those chances. That's the lesson we need to teach our young people, and when faced with adversity - they'll embrace it as just one more brick on their own road to success. 

A Cheeky Concept - The Power of Yes And....

I was walking in the park the other day when I came across a golden retriever who was having the best time in the stream. She was trying to get a stick. Well, it wasn't precisely a stick; it was a log, about twenty feet long and maybe 20 inches in circumference. You could tell by the cheerful expression on her face that she was convinced she could get it and drag it to the bank. She would then proudly bring it to her masters, watching from the bridge. This dog tried everything she could to get that log:  she chewed chunks off it and wanted to push it with her blond paws and nose. Every time she failed, she kept going - undeterred by the obvious. She did succeed in getting one side of the log onto the bank. Her human parents watched in amusement and finally called her to come to them. She obeyed immediately and trotted up the bank, quite happy that she had gotten the log that far. Those watching her caper unfold admired her enthusiasm and applauded as she approached the bridge, soaking wet but proud of what she had accomplished. She was a dog on a mission, and the idea that it was impossible never entered her K-9 brain. She just had fun and did her best with what she had. That's all she really needed.    

I walked away from the bridge and that soggy retriever and thought about how powerful positive thinking is. Having that sort of boundless optimism in our society can be challenging. We're in a world where snarky comments rule social media. Often, the bad seeds yell the loudest and push their own agenda, while the people who come up with new and innovative ideas are either ignored or their ideas are stolen by the head bully. Being positive and thinking outside the box doesn't get you far on shows like The Real Housewives or Survivor. To succeed, you must be willing to stomp on anyone - a buddy or colleague to get ahead. The worst thing about these sorts of shows is that they kill creativity and the importance of true collaboration. In reality, these shows don't show the truth. In act, Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor and countless other shows, refers to them as "unscripted dramas."  

Those meltdowns aren't authentic  - they are staged because, in the real world, you'd be out on the street speaking to your boss, coworker, friend, or lover like that. But those train wreck moments get ratings and plenty of views on YouTube, and for some, it seems like a logical way to behave to get ahead. You can get hundreds of thousands of clicks, but eventually, it will catch up to you. Unlike the skewed world of reality TV - it can ruin your reputation and even have your children taken away - just ask DaddyOFive - a YouTube channel that showed parents pranking their kids in the name of monetized views, which eventually turned so vicious - child protective services had to be called in.  

I like to look at how a simple affirmation can change your life. In the movie Yes Man, Jim Carrey's mundane life is turned upside down when a self-help guru challenges him to say "yes" to the opportunities that come his way.   He goes from being a heartbroken, self-imposed shut-in to the fun guy everyone wants to hang out with.   He saves a man from jumping off a ledge by using the guitar lessons he's started taking to sing Jumper by Third Eye Blind. He gets his best friend's fiancee to like him when he throws them an engagement party. He suddenly goes on spur-of-the-moment trips on flights to anywhere. He finds love because he breaks out of his comfort zone and meets a woman who, on the surface, would not be his type - a singer in an avant-garde band whose quirkiness inspires him to be a different man.   By saying yes to all sorts of possibilities, he becomes a self-realized human willing to meet life head-on rather than run away from it. 

I use improvisation for team building, and one of the first rules I give to my students is to never block offers - it's essential to say "Yes, and..."  For instance, if I start a scene with, "Hey, it's great that we're finally married and on our honeymoon in Paris," and my scene partner comes back with, "We're not married, and we live in New Jersey!", the scene crashes and burns in the first few seconds before it can even get off the ground. The best improvisers will accept the "offer" and build on it - for instance -  "Yes, and I'm so glad that my mother wanted to come with us!"  Now, in those first few lines, we're in agreement about our relationship location, and now that person has added another level of the meddling mother-in-law, which is always comedy gold. Not blocking offers is critical to good improvisation but also vital in taking your life and business to the next level. 

Tina Fey, one of my comedy goddesses, explores this further in her book Bossy Pants. "Now, in real life, you're not always going to agree with everything that everyone says. But the Rule of Agreement reminds you to 'respect what your partner has created' and at least start from an open-minded place. Start with YES AND... and see where that takes you."  She explains that freeing your mind from negativity helps you find new discoveries if you allow yourself to take that chance. "There are no mistakes, only opportunities...Many of the world's greatest discoveries have been by accident. I can look at the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup or Botox."  

We've all worked with people who have the mentality of "No, we can't do that," "No, that's not in our budget," or  "That's the way we've always done it."  If you want to keep the status quo and not grow, don't bring new people in with new ideas. Stay the way you are and stagnate,,; eventually, it will do you in.   

I once worked at an international organization where the program staff wanted to take trips overseas for any event they could.  It was eating holes in their budget, but they insisted that the frequent trips were necessary to keep up communication with their clients, even if it was not specifically to do training. To minimize the journeys between activities,  I suggested teleconferencing from the office in Atlanta so that the overseas clients would get direct contact from our US staff much more often. The cost would be minimal, and the program staff could spend more time at home with their families (albeit they might have to work in the middle of the night to catch clients in Beijing or Nairobi during their workday, but at least they could go home rather than spend 24-hours straight flying and at airports). The Director of Finance was on board with it, but the Program Director threw such a fit that the idea was scrapped. Eventually, the program had to be eliminated because the cost of even doing the twice-a-year face-to-face training overseas was prohibitive. If the Program Director had been on board with teleconferencing, we would have saved her program and increased the number of people she could train. But, she was so hard-wired to not accept anyone's ideas but hers that eventually, she lost her job.   

I was working with a business group recently, and we worked on the Yes and... game.   The Yes and ... is a good group activity for everyone to brainstorm; many advertising agencies use it.  We wanted to figure out how to get the arts out there to more people in the local business community.  One of the other facilitators, Sally Corbett, suggested we answer the question, "How do we change the shape of the Dorito?"  My next suggestion was to make it flower-shaped, like a daisy.  Her next suggestion was to offer dips. My next idea was to have the drops with plant-based colors that were bright and fun.  She then suggested that you could break off the petals and dip them.   I added that if it was sold with a snack plate like a palette, you could paint on it, and the proceeds could go towards arts organizations. We did it with the group, and they understood that being open to other people's imaginations and building on them is good for business.  Think what the brainstorming session for the Chick-fil-A cows must have been like:  "Yeah, we could have cows that encourage people to eat chicken because burgers are made from beef."  "Yes, and" another colleague would add, "they could be slightly mysterious, a little threatening - "  "Yes, and" another staff member would chime in, "They could have really, really bad grammar and handwriting in their signs!"  Boom, one of the most successful advertising campaigns ever, was born. 

So feel free to say yes if someone invites you to try something new. Give it a try; you might like it. There have been times that I literally went to places or events kicking and screaming, and once I got over myself and relaxed, I was happy that I went. You can sit on the couch anytime with the pets or kids and watch a movie but don't turn down an offer that you know you should take advantage of because it takes you out of your comfort zone and gets you to think outside of your cubical. One of my favorite lines from the movie We Bought a Zoo is when Matt Damon says: "You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. It's just literally twenty seconds of embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it."  Yes, and... I couldn't agree more.  

Life's a Pitch

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going because you might not get there."

 – Yogi Berra.

You're sitting in that business networking meeting, and everyone has 30 seconds to get up and pitch their business. You were not prepared to do an elevator speech, but you've been in the industry a long time, so it should be a slam dunk. As row after row of business people give their speeches, you think how much everyone will love yours even though you have not prepared one – but you do well presenting off the cuff. The person before you totally nails it is done before the timer goes off, but you've already sat through 20 presentations that you feel were not memorable.

You stand up confidently and open your mouth just as the timer starts; you have a half minute to tell the group what you do. You start strong with your name and business, but then it seems like there's so much to tell and only 30 seconds to tell it – what do you highlight? Your heart starts beating faster; your hands and armpits sweat like a marathoner. Your breath starts to get shorter. You try to communicate how your business is a beacon of best practices but stumble over the facts. You finally hit your high point when – PPPINNNGGG, the alarm goes off, and you sit down before you can even say your tagline or repeat your name. A woman nearby offers you a condescending look and says, "It's always difficult the first time you do it." You then realize you blew it in front of 50 potential clients.

Whether you're pitching for a new job, networking group, or getting that

new board member or movie financed, the elevator pitch is the key to summarizing your skill set and convincing that person that you know what you're talking about. It should be easy, yet saying what you do in a quick minute or less can be very daunting, so you need to be prepared.

I've done improvisation for over 25 years, which allows me to speak extemporaneously. Even more important is that most people know within 7 to 11 seconds of talking to you if they want to work with you so those first impressions are crucial.   

Years ago, I used to talk to businesses on behalf of United Way to encourage them to give. If I had used the same pitch for senior bankers and their support staff, I would have bored both audiences. The bankers wanted to know the return on their investment (ROI), so I would offer facts about how investing in afterschool programs cut down on high school drop-out rates. The support staff seemed more interested in the actual success stories of the clients we were serving. I was speaking on the same outcomes, just offering different viewpoints based on the audience I was addressing. 

So, how do you start  an elevator pitch? I always like to begin by simmering it down to who I am, what I do, and how I do it; think of it as your mission statement. Once you have that, write what you think is pertinent and edit it. Keeping it simple and specific allows your audience to quickly digest what you are saying because you are not trying to complicate things with more than one or two facts.

For instance, if you are trying to sell an employer on the need for benefits for their staff and

you have 30 seconds to try to get on their calendar – barfing up 10 facts will only confuse them and water down your message. Starting with "Did you know that 43% of employees report that they are considering changing jobs in the next year, but offering good benefits is one way to retain your staff?" will pique their interest. It will probably get you that appointment because it is simple specific, and addresses employee turnover, a problem both large and small businesses face daily.

According to an article in Forbes Magazine by author Nancy Collamer, the first step is identifying your target audience and crafting your words. Your pitch will be different if you're trying to sell yourself personally vs. selling your business or a program within the business. A few key points she offered included:

·    Just a few bullet points. Don't give your entire life story. Nobody has time for that. Just a few key facts that will spark your listener's interest.

·    Tailor your pitch to them – not you. For instance, if you are trying to get a decision maker to use your products, emphasize what will make their life easier by working with you and why it's a great fit. 

·   Avoid industry jargon and acronyms. You might assume that the person you are talking to should know that jargon, but people learn to reference things differently. Spell it out, and don't use slang.

·    Write it down and practice. Writing it down will help you retain the facts and practice in a mirror. Also, practicing role-playing with someone can help build your confidence and give you much-needed feedback. You should also time yourself so you stay within your given time limit.

Remember that 75 words are about 30 seconds, 150 words are approximately one minute, and three hundred words are about two minutes. You should have a speech for each increment, but you'll probably use the 30-second to one-minute pitch the most often.   

So the next time you go to your networking group, job interview, sales meeting, or product demonstration, have a great pitch you feel comfortable with and vary it weekly so you have four or five that you can pull out at a moment's notice. It will make you look polished and prepared, and instead of condescension, you'll get congratulations and maybe a few job offers.